Started the day off on a bad note, recovered a considerable amount but still was down by the end. Did not exercise discipline, got in futures trade, got burnt, then got back in and made back enough to be close to break even, but still down $60 before fees. Could have turned catastrophic. Made a SPY play that I let sit while I drove to work, got stopped out for $90 loss literally cents before turned around and went my direction. Got back in while at work, then doubled down to 200 shares, saying to myself that if I’m going to yahoo into size I might as well use shares instead of futures, as 1 future is the equivalent of 500 shares which I can’t even afford and on top of that there are fees and commissions. The SPY play went in my favor, and my bad luck at the stop out of cents reversed to good luck as I was just cents away from being stopped out for a loss then a massive dump happened & put me in profit. I cashed in half after breaking even from my original loss, then sold the other half at what I thought was reasonable stop area before a dollar level in choppy market. SPY went on to plummet 4 more dollars which was frustrating, but so often when I leave runners, almost every time, I always end up taking a loss & am too hopeful for moves like what happened today to play out. Not sure what the best practice is, take losses 9 out of ten times on runners in the hope that a massive move like today’s will play out?
As far as the other trades I took, most of my analysis was decent but I let myself get chopped up. I am still uncomfortable I think I believe sizing up, & in wanting to protect profits I cut too early, then chase things when I’m losing. When I’m losing I become weak & impulsive. Though my abilities are seemingly improving thus rendering my impulsivity less damaging, it’s only going to take one bad day to hurt me. Today wasn’t that day but it easily could have been and should have been. I’ve unlocked the Pandora’s box of futures, I need to wield them more cautiously & would be better off avoiding them entirely. If I’m really feeling like yahooing shares is enough, and I can hurt myself just as bad without the insult of fees. If you can’t abstain completely then abstain partially and exercise your impulsivity in a more reasonable medium.
I felt more confident today having looked over some of Usman’s fills and seeing that his plays are not so different from plays that I might take. Perhaps the confidence is misplaced, but even the losses from today don’t seem to pain me so badly because I believe that I am not completely in the dark now, that I can more or less identify decent plays and capitalize on them. I still need to exercise caution. It’s very unlikely I meet my goal for this month, and if I continue to trade recklessly I may not even end the month green.
There is something to be said for the fact that I’ve been unable to perfectly track my futures trades as Tradezella does not yet support futures. I lose discipline when I lose track. Not a good enough excuse, but a side note.