Day-Trading: -$1498. Wow didn't actually realise I had lost that much until I calculated it.. That's shocking. I was going to cut size by 30% as per plan of two losing days in a row... But that deserves a 60% cut for the next few days.
Going into the day I wanted to focus on maintaining my flexibility so that I didn't have to hit any uneccessary stops - I obviously got that balance completely wrong.
So three stubborn trades. What do they have in common? MOMO and VRX are the most comparable, EVHC is somewhat different, in that it would have been fine if I had a stop and hit it. So will compare VRX and MOMO.
(1) Started in too early. Both actually had nice pulls, but was too early sizing in counter-trend. VRX wasn't quite as bad; but MOMO was a shocker for being too early.
(2) Got above 2/5s size counter-trend without a hard stop in place. Obviously point 1 and 2 go hand in hand.
(3) Didn't close up position after counter-trend move held. MOMO was such a clean hold, right at vwap, and such a clean grind off vwap. VRX was less obvious, however, a trailed stop-loss would have been an excellent move.
So what actually went wrong?
(1) Not being prepared for worst case scenario and scaling around that (scaling early).
(2) Not closing trade when being shown was wrong.
(3) Not having a hard stop in, so that if price hits it it's off my hands.
Number 3 is really the important one. Simply having one in the marketplace, even if it's miles away prepares you for that outcome.
So what the hell to do about it?
(1) Wait for at least 1 ATR move to start trying to counter-trend trade something.
(2) Have hard stops in on everything. To ensure discipline surrounding this I will add the routine of writing 20 lines "I will have hard stops in the market" to my psych mastery daily routine.
(3) Post 10:30am keep size under control when trading against vwap. Scalps against levels are the exception to this, but they have amazingly defined risk.
Food for thought: MOMO, and VRX I definitely had an edge trading, so no excuses for losing money on the moves. I was thinking that I needed to be more picky, but the volatility/trends are there to make some decent money, I just slopped it.
Swing Trades: +$605. Good payout day for swing. This covered up the huge day-trading loss, which I guess is why I didn't notice it had got so bad.
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