The Day Trading Experiment: End of Day Journal (10-28-2010)

Thursday, October 28, 2010

End of Day Journal (10-28-2010)

Summary:

Paper traded 200 share lots today:

I think I needed a day like today as a reality check. I made two mistakes today. The first was paying a modicum of attention to the EMA's on my POT trade. They were showing red and I bailed on the long position after some decent profit. I didn't 'feel' the exit and there was a $1.25 left on the run. I turned the EMA's off for the afternoon session, and am going to leave them off from now on - I didn't even notice they were gone. The second mistake was a silly mis-key and a POT long at about 12:30 that I didn't get out of right away; again the 'let's see what happens' syndrome.

I was early on the MCP, CMG, and SOHU and got stopped on all of them. Ironically, it was the MCP trade that had one of the largest stops of the day. The majority of my entries are simply spot on - these three would of been the biggest winners of the day - but it becomes a game of trying to keep stops small yet affording enough room for the stock to do what it needs to do. The biggest stops were on the NFLX trades and both of them didn't work out. Most of my exits are pretty good as well, though I should of kept watching V.

Overall I am flat out impressed with how my trading has changed over the last couple of weeks. I think several things came together - I have been consistently practicing visualization, I worked out the 'Sell when a stock runs out of buyers, buy when a stock runs out of sellers' question on a personal level, I was introduced to range bars, and I spent most of last week tweaking a new setup and realized that I was falling into old habits again (i.e. being stupid). All of these set the stage for Time Compression Trading: Exploiting Multiple Time Frames in Zero Sum Markets (Wiley Trading) and the author's ideas were driven home and permanently set. Not that author's ideas are new - Scott has said the same over and over again on his blog. I was able to see myself. The time was just right.

The emotional aspects of my trading have abated tremendously. I am guessing this is because I understand that every moment in the market is completely and utterly unique. Even at today's low point on the profit curve, I did not doubt that as long as I kept doing what I do everything would work out fine; it didn't cross my mind to second guess. Why? Because I know what is going on. I just have to get better at interpreting; I feel like a sponge just soaking it in - and acting on it.

Is this cool or what?

As it turns out, I was still negative at EOD, but no worries; it will come.

Tomorrow is dissertation day. I won't be trading on Friday's until I finish this up.

I am seriously considering going live next week, but after being negative today, I will talk it over some more with my wife before making the plunge. No hurry.

Whoot!!

Trade well.