I’ve mentioned this in earlier posts, but the first week of September was a tremendous source of frustration for me. False bounces, breakdowns, were fake-outs were everywhere while the market figured itself out. While most would have taken a backseat and watched the excitement unfold, I instead got chopped up. These are some old demons of mine which I thought I had crushed long ago but seemed to creep back into my trading. So after being traumatized by this, I finally sat on my hands.
At the same time, the past week is finally when the market decided on a direction. While I caught some of this move, it is nowhere near what it could have been had I been in a right mindset. Had I contained my emotions and followed my rules more strictly earlier in the month, I could have a) saved myself some money and stress and b) would have been in a much better place mentally to take advantage of the tremendous move the past week. I even made the comment going into Thursday’s morning session that I was hoping for 4330 to be tested that day (the SPX closed that day at 4330.01).
So, yay for the great call I made, but did I actually make money on my trades? I regret to say that while I made some money, it was probably about 1/3 of what I should have if I actually followed my rules (that is to say actual entries/exits I should have made, not a pie-in-the-sky “oh if I shorted the top tick” kind of thinking). Instead, I entered trades too late and exited too early all because I was scared and emotional, traumatized by earlier in September. Well, lesson learned (I hope for good).
It’s time to recognize this demon being out again and put him back in the box. I am going to be meditating on this for the next week to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I know most of you don’t necessarily care about my bitching, but I hope you can find a nugget of wisdom or lesson to be learned as you reflect on your own trading. Learn from my mistakes.
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