New Post

Well, I managed to go on a good streak. I was able to straighten out my June, and make a little bit of money on tiny size. I covered all expenses, my draw, and chipped away about 20% of my debt. I felt like I was on the way to getting out of debt, and figuring things out to a certain extent.

I stopped writing in my blog, and I also became lackadaisical in my review and preparation. These last three trading days have been a total nightmare for me. I knew that when I was trading last Friday, I was not making good decisions, but felt alright because I kept my loss within my limit. I had been making about 2-2.5 times what I was losing, so it was an acceptable loss. I knew I was making very bad decisions, but I left believing that it wasn't that detrimental because it was a small loss. I did not review my trades, but I felt like I should have.

So then I came in Tuesday. I was very tired and on edge. I felt like I should take it easy, but I did not. Instead, I completely over traded. Made some very bad decisions and some ok ones. I managed to get up about $850, and I had almost made back Fridays loss. Then, I made one losing trade and kept chasing and chasing and chasing. In a matter of a few minutes, in three different markets, I lost $2,000 and walked out down $1200. I was really pissed off. I printed my trades, saw I made about 50 trades with no reasons, but failed to review again.

Today my goal was to not do anything until oil stats, watch the tour de france, and review my trades the last few weeks. Obviously, I did not do what I planned. I got in a little late, saw a move developing, and jumped into the market. I had a nice 20 tick winner in oil, but never got out and took a small loss. I bought the high of the move and then watched the market move lower. I tried selling a few more times, but only managed to lose. I was frustrated to say the least. Before I knew it, it was 8 am, I was down $670, and pissed off. I then bought two highs, and lost on both, and I ended up down $1500 before oil stats. I was livid. I extended my limit for the day to about $2000 and waited for oil stats. Of course when oil stats came out, I bought twice what I was allowed and took a massive 40 tick loser. I lost $2500 on the trade. My limit is $800, so it was very bad. Normally I lose 5 ticks and get out when I have a bad trade, but I froze and just hoped the market would come back. Instead, I took it in the teeth. I lost $4,000 today, about 5 times more than I allow myself to lose on any given day.

I need to get back to what got me on the right path. I need to review my trades everyday and keep up my blog. The hardest thing is keeping disciplined when things are better because all I want to do is take a breath, relax, and enjoy the good days. This is such a mistake. I need to keep the same intensity and work ethic when things are going well as when I am trading poorly. This is just another test in this survival time.

I have a lot of work to do tonight, a lot of reviewing, and I need to figure out what I have been doing well and what I have been doing poorly.

Without reviewing, I am guessing that I am buying highs and selling lows without reasons. My entries are very poor. I have bad risk management. I am taking too big of losers. I have no reasons for my trades other than that I feel like things moved to far too fast.

What I need to do is slow down, wait for my reasons, take my quick losers and get out and just book profits. No need to look for big moves, just do what I do best. Have multiple reasons for trades, go with trend, wait for scenarios to develop, and keep my losers very small.

Time to review and see what I find . . . . .