Slowing down

Part of my plan includes trading every time that I think I should, boldly and without hesitation, playing the odds, keeping losses small and comfortable and letting winners run. I think I have been pretty consistent with the plan, but it doesn't seem to be working very well. I attribute this to not having a good enough sense of true momentum resulting in entries on non-existent or weak momo.

I am not sure why I place so many entries, part of the reason may be that I am too eager to be a part of a move and want to get in early. But - I am trading when I think I should, for whatever reasons. How to train myself to spot the stronger momo moves?

Towards this end I decided to take a look at the Q's over the last several day. I highlighted what I thought were the change in momo moves of the day:

I spotted about 4 or 5 moves per day. I am not sure that I know how to characterize these, I choose them based on some market indecision and a substantial change in direction. For now, I think it is enough to number them.

Based on this, I have decided to attempt to limit the market momo decision points to 5 per day. This won't be a hard and fast rule, but if I go over 7 I will go back to paper trading until I can be consistent.

For the sake of posterity (and my own study benefit), here are closeups of all the days:

Convincing myself to slow down and be more judicious in my entries is proving rather difficult.