Still sick with cold, but have slept a healthy amount & diet has been very healthy. Do not feel terrible other than stuffy & coughing, no pain. I am at a precarious position psychologically for the month, after yesterdays performance I tipped over $2000 in monthly profits, a number that I want to stay at or surpass, and that I can imagine seeing a decline from would psychologically impact me. I’d like to trade today and Monday as I’ll be in Denver & unable to trade for all of next week. Just now realizing that I’ll have the week after to trade as well, so there is no pressure to try and force anything into these next two days, I still have 5 trading days left in the month. Alright that’s a healthy thing to have settled. I’d like to aim for crumbs today, yesterday I went above that goal as the price action seemed to encourage it, but I’d like to maintain a slow grind upwards for the remainder of the month. If some extraordinary & clear opportunity seems to present itself I can adjust but I’d much rather play safe and miss out on profits at this point than expose myself to too much risk. Crumbs. 2-3 points is the goal. Follow the price action. Opening the platform now.
In a dangerous zone. Chopping around daily level of 3960. With the small goals I have it’s likely possible to scalp to achieve them but this is chop land. Looks to be rejecting off the level now, but this can quickly reverse.
Was able to take one win, then expected too much of the second & buried myself in a deeper hole. Fucked off a little more but stopped myself. This is the pattern that crushes me. I need to take the L.
L got bigger than it should have, I felt it happening and felt myself chasing shitty plays. I stopped myself earlier than normal which is good, but nevertheless, this is the behavior that will hinder my progress. I’ve basically nullified yesterdays good play. This is the lesson that needs to be embraced. Take your small bad days. Tomorrow is a new day with new opportunities and new mental reserves. There is no reason to have to always be green, and the bigger you’re red the more your mental capital is exhausted into the next day. You should be happy to take good losses. Today you took poor losses though you stopped yourself from snowballing completely, though you did a little bit.
You knew you were in a sketchy zone, you should have taken the crumbs and ran. It’s better to stick to the crumbs method it seems, you’re trying to rush your growth. Stick to the crumbs method and bolster your account through outside capital to set yourself up for bigger wins. In rushing to reach the end, you’re only setting yourself up to slide backwards. You had a win today, and even exported the file with the plan to walk away, but then you entered back in. There should be a limit on any losses for the day. $250 should be the limit, and this is not $250 in negative p&l but 250 on the day. I was up 100, but then I took a $250 loss putting me down $150. This should have flagged the rule as I lost a total of $250.
What I’ve done well today is stopping while behind. Though I went in for numb trades I did stop myself earlier than I usually do. I felt the anxiety or whatever momentum in me to keep trying for more trades, but I noticed that I wasn’t trading from the mindset that I trade with when I go in for my crumbs trades.
What I did poorly, was when this anxiety to try and get back to break even I was just wildly, sloppily entering & exiting on any flicker of price action. This is not the way to trade. Take note of the high from yesterday and realize that the inverse of that high can completely nullify the progress. You traded well yesterday, but in that trading were the seeds of your demise today. You wanted to hold for a larger gain today and it didn’t work in your favor. This was one issue, and a reasonably small one, it was the resulting carnal need to get back to even that set yourself up for the larger failure. It’s fine to have and acknowledge this feeling of wanting to get back to even, but if it cannot be channeled into good trading, then it is only a volatile & dangerous