I really like my patience of late. It appears that my lack of focus is a good thing as it doesn’t make me eager to put on trades all the time. Finding the right spots is a big part of this game and the last few days I’ve picked my spots quite effectively.

Here are today’s results:

After commissions are factored in, I ended up with +$295.79 in profit.

I don’t have much to say as I’m usually more talkative when things go bad and I try to figure out why. Days like today, I just stuck to my rules and traded with patience. I wasn’t greedy trying to stretch profits. My entries were pretty good and the trades worked from the start. Can’t complain.

Here is what the MA trade looked like on the 1 minute chart:

Here is what the SRS trade looked like on the 1 minute chart:

Off to buy ingredients to make lobster sandwiches for dinner. We live in a lobster heavy part of Canada and nothing beats paying around $7 a pound for the freshest lobster. Enjoy the rest of your day everyone.

I think I traded quite well today especially when you consider two things: 1) I didn’t feel very focused and was distracted easily, and 2) My first trade was a loss.

Despite these two obstacles, I managed to pull out my highest profit day so far this week. That was mostly due to the fact that I was quite disciplined and didn’t let the first loss bother me.

Here are the results:

After commissions I booked +$380.91 in profit today.

Two charts for you today. The first one shows my BIDU trade which resulted in a loser. In retrospect I should have waited for it to actually break out before going long. As you can see the breakout never occurred and I was left taking a loss. Speaking of BIDU, I should take it off my watch list as I never seem to have luck trading it. I imagine my winning % with that name is quite low.

The second chart shows my SRS trade which was well placed and well executed for a nice profit.

Going to enjoy dinner out with the family tonight and back to the grind tomorrow.

I spent most of the day running around doing errands.  I did get rid of my overnight hold, SKF, in the first 1/2 hour of trading. That made my day as it reversed from a loser and bailed me out of a mistake I made yesterday.

The result is not good in the sense that I shouldn’t have turned a profit on that trade as I broke almost all my rules but a win is a win. Spending the day away from the market also helped me clear my head and should result in more focused trading tomorrow. We shall see.

After commissions I booked +$144.90 in profit on this trade.

Glancing at the total today, you may feel like my title is not fitting but let me assure you that it certainly is.

I count only my closed trades in the daily recap number and tonight I am holding a position in SKF overnight. I Purchased 150 shares at 106.50 and the stock closed at 102.50 so as you can see I am down $600 at the close. We will have to find out tomorrow if it ends up being booked as a loss or a gain.

Now on to my closed trades recap:

With commissions I did manage to pull a profit of $182.69 on the day.

The profit number doesn’t tell the full story however. I did alright to start the day and should have called it quits when I was up over $400 but decided to get into that BIDU trade you see at the bottom of the graphic. That one trade led to my SKF purchase which I’m holding overnight. I mentioned last week that I trade very poorly when I give back gains and this is a prime example of that.

I was pretty tired all day and did not feel very focused at all. I felt very similar to how I felt last Monday when I took a big loss. I think it may be something I have to work on, trading after a weekend. We’ll see if it is a pattern soon enough.

I want to touch on a few other things but it’s getting late and I have some other stuff I need to do. I’ll leave you with the one chart I did make and that is the one that shows my DIG trade at the start of the day. Back at it tomorrow.

The first week back writing on this blog is in the books and it was a profitable one to the tune of $673.69. It would have been much better had it not been for the horrible Monday which was a blowout caused purely out of my own stupidity.

I must say that it does feel good turning thoughts into words again as it gives me a good perspective of what I am doing. I’ve been on and off with this blog for a while now but really feel like this time around it will stick especially if it proves beneficial to my trading.

Here is a quick recap of the week:

Monday: -$1634.10 [ recap link ]
I wouldn’t call what I did on Monday trading because it was not. Instead of following my plan and trading according to my rules, I placed a trade based on a thesis that never did materialize. This one day hampered my results for the week in a major way but it did serve a purpose to remind me to stay focused.

Tuesday: +$912.82 [ recap link ]
A good bounce back day which did include a risky trade at the open that panned out. The first trade set the stage for my other two trades which were also winners. Not bad at all.

Wednesday: +$705.76 [ recap link ]
My best trading day of the week. Felt comfortable and focused while following my rules like I should.

Thursday: +$338.38 [ recap link ]
This day was much harder on me emotionally than Monday until the final trade when I called it quits. I was good at cutting my losers but felt like I over traded and wasn’t picky on my entries. Even though I ended the day in the positive, my trading wasn’t good at all.

Friday: +$350.86 [ recap link ]
I felt very comfortable again, traded with patience and took good entries on the two trades I did place. Next to Wednesday, this was my best day of the week and I know it will set a positive foundation for next week.

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday I had to work my butt off to squeak out over $300 in profit. Today, on the other hand, I achieved that number in 45 minutes of trading.

I made two trades, both of which were positive and decided to call it a day. One thing I’ve learned over the years is to quit when I am content with my gains and my trading. I react badly to giving up gains and that leads me to lose my discipline. Bad habits die hard. When I am able to end a day on a positive note, it builds a good foundation for the next trading day.

Here are today’s results:

After commissions I ended the day with a nice profit of +$350.86.

Now let me show you how both trades looked like on the charts. Financials including GS looked strong off the open so I jumped in at 67.30 with a stop 1 point below. After some bouncing around it finally broke 68.50. I set my mental stop to that # and when it was hit, I exited.

I always keep an eye on SKF as it presents some great trading opportunities. My basis for the trade was that once it broke 143 this morning it would run to test 145. As you can see my thesis did come into fruition. I exited at 144.39.

Glad to end the week on a positive note and I feel very good about my trading today. Later on in the day or tonight, I will do a weekly recap post. Till then.

As is the case most of the time when I trade a full day, it usually means that I am having a hard time making a profit. Today was one heck of a hard day to trade, it was chop city!

I did not help matters any by taking a loss on my first two trades before finally getting into a profitable one which was immediately followed up by another loser. I kept at it though and here are the results:

After seven total trades on the day, I was able to squeak out a profit of $338.34.

My day started off getting long GS, only to get out right before it bounced two points. Literally a minute or two later. I followed that up by trying to catch an upside move in GOOG which never did materialize. Not a good start at all.

What I did like today is that I cut my losers off and let my winners run, almost out of necessity. It is something that I’m constantly still struggling with (cutting losers) and a day like today is positive reinforcement. In all honestly I do not feel like I traded well today but because I did cut my losers I ended up in the green.

Although I must admit that on the -$431.25 SKF trade I did lower my stop a few times. Originally, it was set at 131.00 which I lowered to 130, ignored it again, and finally let it go at 129.15. Doh!

Another thing I want to touch and work on is trying to not trade during times when I see that market is chopping around. Let me explain further:

As I write this with about 20 minutes left in the trading day, I must say that the last hour was probably the best time to trade as the trend is clearly to the downside. The rest of the day was very difficult as the market just chopped around. I need to work on placing trades when there is a clear trend and not trade when the market is choppy. By the time the final hour came around, I was mentally exhausted and just happy to end the day with a profit. Thus, I missed opportunities at the end of the day.

However, I do find it difficult to not trade when I start the day with a loss. Something inside me just wants to get that money back. I need to realize that the market isn’t going anywhere and I need to be picky and choose only the best opportunities.

Unemployment numbers out tomorrow should make for some good moves in the market. Time to rest up for what should be an eventful day.

Well I have basically dug myself out of the hole I was buried in on Monday, give or take a few dollars.

Here’s a lesson to takeaway: So far this week I took 7 trades, which resulted in 6 winners and 1 loser yet I’m even. This goes to show you how one bad trade can ruin the whole week. That is why it is always important to stay disciplined and always have an exit plan that minimizes the damage. Otherwise you will always end up swimming upstream.

Today’s trading results:

Very happy to report that after commissions I booked +$705.76 in profit today.

What makes me happy about my results today is that I was very patient and disciplined. I stuck to my plan and didn’t make impulsive decisions. As you will see from the AAPL chart that I posted below, I held the 2nd trade for 42 minutes and had the “urge” to close it a few times. However, before placing the trade I had a exit point of either 89.50 or 91.40. I stayed on through the bouncing around till my objective was reached. Here’s the chart:

Here is the POT trade chart:

Today was a great example of how good things happen when I stick to my plan. Now if I could just rinse and repeat this day, everyday.

After spending yesterday digging myself into a hole to start the month, I spent today trying to dig myself out.

This morning, when the futures were up, the first thought that popped into my mind was to fade the gap via SKF. This violated the “Opening Bell Rule” you see on the right sidebar but that was overruled by Rule #3: Enter trades only when you feel like you have the best shot at a profit. I felt the fade trade was clearly worth the risk. Here are the results for the day:

After commissions, I decided to call it a day with a profit of $912.83.

I felt much more comfortable trading today than yesterday. That is usually the case when I start off the day with a winner. I have to work on having this feeling even when I suffer a loss to start the day.

Below is a 1 minute chart of SKF which shows my entry and exit points on the two SKF trades I placed today.

Off to go set up the Christmas tree with the kids. I will try to get back in front of the monitors to see the final hour of trading but I won’t be placing any trades.

I had a great September, a bad October and an average November. With that said, December started off horribly wrong. It’s not just the total loss on the day, which is pretty bad, but the thing that really makes me say “ugh” is that I keep repeating the same mistakes.

Why do I keep repeating the same mistakes? Well, because on many occasions when I do steer off course, I get bailed out and end up with profits. This helps reinforce my lack of discipline.

Today i did not get bailed out. Today, I had to endure pain for my mistakes, and rightfully so.  Let’s get to the result:

After commissions I ended the day at an abysmal loss of -$1634.10 to start the month of December.

So where did I go wrong?

Like many times when I end up with a loss, I tried to assume that I knew what the market was going to do.

In today’s case that was thinking that we would bounce off down 300 at one point in the session and I would book some easy profits. I did not have a stop loss because the trade was placed on the assumption that the market was going to bounce at some point in the day. I kept that hope alive going into the last hour and  when things started to deteriorate, I just let the loss build up. Comically so, I sold near the bottom of the day.

Not only did I lose money on this trade but I also lost other opportunities because I was “mentally stuck”  in my bounce assumption.

So it wasn’t a good day to start the month but it was good reminder to not be stupid. Back at it tomorrow.