Today is Tuesday April 28th, and the markets are still holding on to support. Which way will they break?
Today, trading went quick and easy, not a bad way to handle the day. I was only in the market 17 minutes from my first trade, to my last and only 4 minutes of actual, in trade time. I picked up some nice easy short trades at 8:05 and around 8:12 am, followed up by a small half point trade and I will tell you a 1 tick trade that I took on purpose for only 1 tick. I just wanted to get to $ 1,000 and close it up and I only needed one more tick to do that and cover commissions. Some of you might not think that was a smart trade, well, “I beg to differ”.
I was going to hit that trade and the 1/2 point trade before it, at 90% plus success rate. You see, I could have gotten more on that trade, but I disciplined myself not to be greedy and to follow what I said earlier in the session – that I wanted to get to my dollar goal and finish.
I did exactly what I wanted to do. I could have traded for more and I could have probably traded to double what I hit today, but that is not the point. You have to be able to follow your trading plan for the day as well as your trading execution as best you can. If you know that you are in control of your trading, you can stop when you say stop and start when its time to start. For some people, trading can turn into obsessive behavior and the trader can experience a lack of self control. That is why I put out the little challenge last week, on exercising self discipline.
The bottom line is I hit my trading goal for the day and I did it in quick fashion. I often think that is the perfect day. Very little struggle. That is what you are looking for, believe me. It is no fun to be down and struggling to come back up. That is where you have to find all that is within you to mentally keep it together.
But to avoid overly large losing days and blow up days that can take weeks to come back from, I have a safety net. My daily loss limit. I know that if the very worst thing happens, I will only be down two times my daily goal. It’s not the end of the world and it does take a lot of pressure off when you are in the thick of it. All important points to remember when you are in the “Eye of the Needle”.
http://www.screencast.com/t/km18o33jxb Today’s equity chart
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Tags: self control, trading plan
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