Today was not an easy day to trade. It was difficult to get comfortable trading in one direction because of lad of follow through in the markets. There are trading days where it is required for you to make what you are suppose too, to squeeze profit out of your trade ideas because more is available in the markets. Unfortunately today was not one of those days. Today was a day to keep money in your pocket; to not dig yourself into a whole, so when we get a trending day and profit are easy you are not just breaking even.
Today I could have kept a lot more money in my pocket if I just payed attention to what was available in the markets. I lost most of my money shorting stocks as the markets were at support levels. My main mistake was trying to get a head start on trade ideas and not being patient to let the market and/or internals to indicate it is time to participate. This lead to very choppy price action and me taking losses on very mediocre setups that should have been ignore until the markets created a clearer picture.
During this time when I lost the most money my focus was on trying to initiate trades and trying to catch the next momentum move instead of asking myself, is this the proper environment to put on a new trade and are my expectation justified? Because I was not focus on all the pieces it take to building a good scenario I didn’t realize that the momentum had slowed and support levels were holding the markets. Which causes frustration and unnecessary losses.
So even though it is very important to do the homework and develop trade idea before the market opens, we must also put those trading idea into prospectus in what is available in the markets to adjust expectations and and trade accordingly.
