I’m starting to wonder if I have the concentration capabilities and the emotional make-up in order to trade. I was down -$42 total today; first trade of the day was successful $25 and I thought about hanging up things but didn’t. I battled back to break even to only lose more into close. I am now down a total of -$185 in my prop account. The only bright spot, with some cash I had in my Think or Swim account, I bought some gutter stocks over the last 5 days, mainly C @ .99. I have unrealized gains in that account for +$80, though with a red market a couple bad days in a row, I could be down a couple hundred just as easy. I will do a post about those positions this weekend. So I guess I’m only down -$100 for the last two weeks; and with the -$600 from last fall and my expenses (books, services, etc.), I have expended $1,000 so far on my trading training.

I’m too disgruntled and embarrassed to post my trades from today. I printed them out for my records. UPDATE 3/12/09: Here’s my trades from Wednesday.

Clearly, I over traded. My first trade of the day was a winner with DOW. Then I got stuck in a trade (OEH) that blew by my mental stop and then I didn’t cut my losses, instead doubling down. I stayed stuck in that trade for an hour plus, getting super emotional. After that, I stopped following any of my rules at all. I thought I would “scalp” for quick profits. HA! If I had just stayed in the PLD and TPX trades when I shorted them and waited for a 10/60 SMA cross on the 1 minute chart per my rules, I would have had a great day. My stock loss was only -12, but since I over traded, the rest was in commissions, another negative of over trading. Today (3/12), I’m doing much better.

But my ability to focus and concentrate – I need to improve this through diet and exercise or something. I can sit down and write a long narrative but it hasn’t translated into my trading yet. And even with 100 share positions, my heart is racing when I am in a trade. While I need to be disciplined, I also have to make split second decisions that bend my rules – but these discretionary calls can only be honed with experience. In any case, I didn’t follow my rules very good today. This is what I know:

1) The watch list the night before is a good idea; but I have to focus on them during the day. If I had simply traded GNK and GMXR from my list, I would of had several very profitable set ups.

2) I can’t exit trades because I’m bored or impatient – I was short TPX and long TNA – I bolted out of these for small gains or break even, and left tons of movement on the table as they made runs as soon as I said good bye.

3) Buy on the dip and short on a pop back – I have been chasing too much.

4) Shorts on rocket candles – these are like .25+ pops on one 5 minute candle on no news in slightly illiquid stocks – they work best when the market is overall red; they typically tank as long as there isn’t water rising all boats.

I will be back on Wednesday night to post a prospect list for Thrusday with trading goals for the next day. I have some projects I have to get done for my real life work and it works out I probably need a breather from trading.