When I first started learning to daytrade, I used to get evry upset with myself over almost every mistake that I made. Once I realized what a negative approach that was, I identified the one and only time that I would allow myself to be really upset with me.

The time that I allow myself to be upset with me is when I do not follow my plan which is kin to loosing discipline.

This month (Nov.)  has been a very difficult month to trade in my opinion. To date there has been really only one trending day. Now there were two additional days that I will identify as quasi-trending days as they did not meet the typical criteria for a nice, smooth trend in OF or they started out in a definate trend, but then transformed into a range bound day.

For Debbie, months like this are very difficult for two reasons: (1) range bound conditions prevail; and (2) when Debbie finally gets a trending day, all she can think about is what “was” for the past 8 days.

Now, the positive on today was that despite difficult conditions there was money to be made in specific stocks. Debbie had a plan for HIG if it trended. She took a hit trying to get in on the OR break but the hit was not a big one. Finally, she got the right price where risk could be managed and if follow through continued then the potential reward was great.

What happened next was, Debbie got spooked out of the position because HIG was moving contrary to the bias of the order flow in the SPY from the open and the vix was not really making one have confident in long positions. She took a loss.

HIG went on to move higher until about 11:45 ish. with a profit potential of somewhere around .70 cents. Debbie spent the rest of the time trying to get back in and continued to take small losses which added up. Once HIG was not working Debbie switched stocks and made the situation worse.

Debbie is upset with herself, as a trader, for two reasons: (1) she did not stick with her plan; (2) she fell into an old pattern of trying to make losses back and, as a result, lost perspective on what was happening in the markets and on the stock charts.

The result  of the two above problems are Debbie overtraded and Debbie took an unnessasary negative hit on the P/L today.

The only way to solve  reoccurring challenges, or any challenge to ones progress at all,  is to create a rule for the challenge and, more importantly, follow the rule in order to extinguish the problem.

Here is what I am doing tonight.

First, I will write these two problems out a a sheet of paper, crumble them up, throw them away, and they will be gone forever. Second, tonight will be spent revising my trading plan and adding a couple more rules.

Profitable Trading ALL!

Debbie, EdD, MAED, BSED

Tagged: day trading, day trading blogs, day trading stocks, day trading swing trading prop firms, investing