End of Day Journal (9-16-10)

Summary:

Every single trade I make is more practice - every trade I put on gives me the opportunity to learn something about myself and the market.

Today was a mixed bag. traded the morning like a champ (as bouncy as it was). Then promptly fell apart over the early afternoon:

You can see I had a whole slew of losses over the afternoon - several consecutive. Three culprits: CF, AAPL and TNA. I went straight from the HOD cumulative profit for the day to the LOD. Looking back over the trade sequences, after the profit HOD, I traded ESI long for a stop, then PRGO short then long for two stops, and then CF, where I went long on the 1:55 breakout, stopped, short, stopped, long, stopped. The candle is a duzzy. After the last stop I felt tired, irritated and disconnected and should of stopped trading for a bit. But I didn't. I did ok until I read short on the 2:20 Q's (prior support) and jumped into TNA and everything went downhill for the next 20-30 minutes. I couldn't seem to find direction on either TNA or AAPL and all the day's hard work went 'poof' - gone in about an hour, most of it the last quarter of the hour. TNA and AAPL both look like my old busy charts.

Interestingly enough, I caught myself thinking I am tired and irritated - right after the last stop in CF (3 in one candle). That should of been the signal to re-focus.

I managed to get back into 'fun' zone after a breather and finished off the afternoon on an upbeat.

Here are the day's largest losses:

Looks like RDWR had a $0.40 per share - again, as yesterday, the spread was too wide. Some of these stocks change their spreads very quickly. When I entered RDWR had a spread of less than $0.05. I am starting to be able to tell by looking at the charts - big gaps between candle ends is not a 'healthy' sign. These types of stocks are not worth the trouble.

Here are the largest winners:

Looks like I had a $0.62 in RIG and a $0.65 move in ESI.

I watched the opening salvo much closer today, but still missed a few setups. APOL and XEC to name two.

Today was exhausting. I felt like I had to work my tail off this morning to keep things profitable, a lot of concentration and a lot of scrolling thru my list. It was fun - but I think the effort of it all was wearing on me, and by the time CF rolled around I was not ready.

The thing about keeping this fun - it has to do with expectations - 'Let me just try this and see what happens'. If the trade has direction, then I do the best I can to get out. For some reason this approach is more powerful than Douglas' mantra. When I make trading a game, it seems to keep me open to possibilities and tuned to what is happening and I feel like I am learning by leaps and bounds. This morning I was much more selective than I was yesterday - turning some morning breakouts down because they didn't look right. Of course, this all went kablooey after CF, but I managed to put on my game face for the last 45 minutes.

Again, every trade is more practice. Every position I establish is more time in the trenches. The hope is that with enough time and practice, all of this will eventually translate well to live trading. The powerful feelings I experience have more to do with thinking of myself as 'being wrong' (over and over again) rather than losing money. This keeps me optimistic.

Trade well. 

Details:

AAPL; pfft... that 2:40 to 3:00 stretch is a nightmare:

APOL; I had been watching ESI do it's thing and wondered why APOL was just spending the morning flat.... then all a sudden it wasn't. Got stopped on the first entry but managed to re-coup and then some:

BIDU; going to start passing on these long wick breakouts:

CF: the breakout looked good, but it didn't happen - so I reversed... which didn't happen either. So I reversed again... and pfft. The stops getting further and further out as the wicks got longer:

EOG; missed the 11:25:

ESI; I didn't trust the first setup:

JKS; again - the importance of timing - I came in on one of the largest greens of the day and big volume - I hesitated on the entry. By the time I was in I was thinking in terms of up from my entry, and didn't think about the size of my entry candle. I should have been looking for the exit. Not a very nice trading stock either, jumpy action:

MOS; scalped the first breakout (barely),  then tried to play the failed triangle:

POT; another argument for timing:

PRGO:

PSA; timing - late entry kept the stop closer, otherwise I would of had it on top of the prior high:

RHT; could of been played better:

RIG; looks ugly, but I managed to re-coup and then some by EOD:

SLG; out on the retrace, which looked like the thing to do until 5 minutes later. Try to cover on strength:

SPG; not to be:

TNA; don't ask...

VNO:

XEC; I was too busy losing money on everything else to notice the great late afternoon setup: