9:00am – Now that I’m not trading with play money any more, I need to be more serious and diligent. To that end, my plan is to post goals for the day each morning as well as to more formally review my trades for the week each weekend. Today, my aims are:
1) Step out of the profit and loss trading world view.
2) Gauge my success by my consistency in following my rules.
3) Focus on my exit rules for now, in particular tight stops while staying in trades.
4) Start filling out my worksheet to better track my entries and exits in trades.
I will edit this post later with the results of my trades.
2:00pm – I did not reach any of my goals today. I garnered losses early and started to focus on “making up” for my red day, stopped thinking about following my rules, and only filled out the worksheet for one trade – and I made 20 of them today.
| Stock | # | Gross | Fee | Net | S/L | Rules | Note |
| YHOO | 100 | 9 | -1.76 | 7.24 | S | -1 | Exit too soon |
| BAC | 100 | -2.75 | -1.84 | -4.59 | S | -1 | Ordering error, covered accidentally |
| PDLI | 200 | 1 | -3.62 | -2.62 | S | -2 | Exit too soon, lost on second try |
| FAS | 200 | 3 | -3.52 | -0.52 | L | -2 | Exit too soon, loss on second try |
| PALM | 100 | -17 | -1.76 | -18.76 | S | -1 | Ordering error, stop limit did not fill |
| PLD | 300 | -7 | -5.3 | -12.3 | S | -2 | Stopped out, then went up, order error |
| BX | 100 | -6 | -1.62 | -7.62 | S | 1 | Sopped out, then went down |
| MCCC | 100 | 15 | -1.79 | 13.21 | S | 1 | Good exit, followed rules |
| ABM | 100 | -12 | -1.62 | -13.62 | S | -1 | Stopped out, then went up |
| GTI | 100 | 11 | -1.4 | 9.6 | S | 1 | Good exit, followed rules |
| EGLE | 100 | -13 | -1.79 | -14.79 | S | -1 | Ordering error, market order |
| MTG | 100 | 2 | -1.84 | 0.16 | S | -1 | Exited out of boredom |
| PSYS | 100 | -10 | -1.8 | -11.8 | S | 1 | Stopped out, went up after |
| PRU | 100 | 18 | -1.62 | 16.38 | S | -1 | Good exit, did not follow rules |
| GE | 200 | -26 | -3.71 | -29.71 | L | -1 | Doubled down – broke cardinal rule |
| MBI | 100 | -3 | -1.62 | -4.62 | S | -1 | Boredom exit, went down after |
| 2100 | -36.61 | -74.36 | -11 |
I guess it is only natural to go crazy now that I don’t have the restrictions of the PDT rule, but clearly when nearly half my losses are in commissions – this is an indication that I’m not taking high quality setups that are worth the transaction costs let alone the risk. Something key observations from today:
1) I made several ordering mistakes in particular sending out limit orders when they were stops (PLD and BAC), placing a stop limit order that was not filled at all (PALM) and selling short without looking at the price on EGLE – it dropped like .15 cents between the time I looked at the chart and made the order – and bounced back up .15 cents right after I shorted it!
2) I doubled down on my buy of GE going long! So the pain was twice as much it should of been. NEVER double down, ever.
3) On several stocks I exited too soon (PDLI and FAS) and then tried to re-enter to only wipe out my gains on my remorse trading.
4) Exited two trades out of boredom with no exit indicators (MTG and MBI).
So, in my paper trading for awhile I was really crippled by hesitation – that is not the case currently. So to stop the bleeding, I’m going to do the following.
- Take Thursday off from trading.
- Limit myself to three (3) trades a day until otherwise warranted. With the limited trades – this will force me to only enter ideal set ups.
- $30 limit on losses per day.
- 0% ordering errors.
- Still focus on my other goals from today: no profit and loss thinking, gauging success by rule following, stay on top of exits, and filling out my worksheet everyday.
See you Friday. Here is a print up of the trades for my record.
