I took the week off - feel lost

[BlowFish]

I suffer from the same thing. For me the pattern is this

I trade badly (closing good trades early - very early). I pull away from trading (cut back on hours, taking more and more time off - I often miss trades when I am there) The plan is to get my head together. The final step is finding it hard to return to trading thinking there is a good chance I am going to make the same errors (sadly I have made them for quite a long time). Actually my whole 'undertrading' issue is knowing that I have not dealt with the psych issues that cause me to mis manage trades.

The advice given here is great to get you back in sync with the market. However if there is a more fundamental problem (which is very likely imho) then you may be better off not trading until you identify it and deal with it. If there was not (a problem) I cant help feeling that you would not be able to wait for Monday morning to come round.

A final thought. The success = effort = number of hours worked way of thinking can be detremental to your trading. (actually it almost certainly will as you become more succesful). Depending on the time frame you focus on and your aproach you can be done in a very short time each hour/day/week/month . I know a couple of break out traders that have there days trades planed and orders in within 10 minutes of opening a chart. Its off to the golf course or beach for the rest of the day then. Trading is not an endeavour where the reward is proportional to hours worked (except when learning I guess). I know that is not your problem but there are a couple of replies here that hint it might be, that can result in all sorts of guilt trips and self sabotaging behaviour.

Cheers.

[james_gsx]

Well I did trade today, and I did occassionaly flip through my weekly plan that I had laid out. None of my swing trades fell into place so I didn't do anything there. I took a lot of notes on Microsoft Word and printed them out, and I'm reviewing them now.

I did notice something though, I hit my goal fairly early but I wanted to stay in the market. Usually I just walk away, but I stayed and noticed my emotions went up by quite a bit. I was just paper trading, writing down where I'd make my trades and I noticed I was just being stupid - no other way to describe it. I would try to take the contrarian side to a quick move (which I'm usually good at) but I would screw it up and wonder why the heck I just did that. Or it would work, and I would get greedy. I didn't notice this while I was trading, but thinking back about it now I noticed it.

Then tonight after the markets closed I felt like there was something I should be doing. Not sure what, but I felt very bored, so I just studied for the Series 7 test then read Vogue lol (I sell womens shoes so I need to know womens fashion).

I also noticed I have a hard time paying attention during the market, I get very bored (not saying I want it to be exciting, but I get bored staring at candles all day when I'm waiting for a trade). So I set audio alerts in case any of my trades were about to take place and shopped for new shoes and other things. Not sure if that's a good idea, but I figured it was better than walking away and going back to bed like I used to do.

Sorry if that made no sense. I know a lot about trading and I can explain a lot of strategies to people. I can look at a chart and tell you what you should have done. But I'm still new, and being in the game real time is completely different and it will take lots of practice. My main goal for this week is proper trade execution, and not to worry about money.

[Nick1984]

Today I set out with my pre market analysis and set myself up with a trading plan. I noted down all the relevant price levels from my daily chart and wrote down everyhing in my journal. I went back and read yesterdays entry and noted to myself what lessons I had to heed from the previous day. I took a break played some games etc then sat back down for the start of the day.

I had on 4 trades today and I ended up +33 points. Since I'm only trading 1 contract at a time at the moment I stuck to my rules and took +10 on every trade no matter how tempted I was to let it go. I reasured myself that once I'm putting 2 contracts down the 2nd contract can take any additional points that are on offer but always get that +10 no matter what! I had one loosing trade which I took a 7 point hit and I put that down to being over eagre to trade.

Once you've written down a plan and you see it working you have to calm yourself down a bit because you can become a bit overconfident thinking that you've suddenly become some sort of analytical genious over night! Overtrading is my next hurdle.

Thanks for all your help Brown. Slowly slowly if I stick to my rules and be disciplied I can objectively look at what I'm doing and see if what I'm doing works.

Also thanks to James 2 (I'll call james_gsx James 2 so as to not be confused with Soul) for starting this thread.

[james_gsx]

I'm going to copy my daily trading plan for Wednesday onto here from Word. It's short and simple, I have a more detailed weekly plan already sitting on my desk. This is basically just an update for me, so I know what to focus on. The trades to take are just the names that are in my 2007 online trading plan and are detailed there. I just list them on the daily plan so I know what to wait for. Input is definitely welcome.

What trades to take:
- Opening Gap
- Pivots
- Ambush Plays
- Scalps
The YM continues to trade in a tight range, and the NQ is proving to be the leader. Watch the NQ closely for a rally off the 8 EMA. Continue to watch the Dow swing plays I have in place.

Tuesday Review:
- AIG hit 8 EMA and fell, trade continues to work. Look for a small bounce when the stock hits the 50 EMA on the weekly chart.
- C – Continues to fall but the weekly trend line is holding up, watch for support.
- HON continues to trade in consolidation and what looks to be a bull flag, wait for a breakout.
- Same with HPQ
- IBM broke out of resistance and is looking for support, buy if support holds.
- JNJ – 8 EMA tried to cross above 21 EMA, if this happens then the short play is over.
- JPM – Continues to fall, short rallies to 8 EMA. Take note that the stock could be finding support at 50EMA on the weekly chart.
- KO continues to consolidate, wait for breakout.
- Same with MMM
- UTX is continuing to trend higher, buy pullbacks to the 21EMA which shows to be the strongest support line.

Objectives:
1. Focus on capital management
2. Focus on proper trade execution
3. Do not get emotional
4. Stops happen, follow the plan.
5. Daily YM goal – 20 pts.

[torero]

Excellent journal entry. One thing you might want to keep a list of is your mistakes for the day at the bottom or top. It's for quick peruse of how you did for the day. I.e.

Mistakes today:
#1 -- Didn't honor my target profit today
#2 -- Took a signal that was NOT part of the plan

I use this list to compare against previous days/weeks/months to see my progress on eliminating these mistakes. I think it was Longstreet who said "the team that win is the team that commit the least mistakes".

[james_gsx]

Good idea, I didn't trade yesterday (Tuesday) because I had to work at my other job and I took the opportunity to sleep in a little bit. But I will definitely add that in my next entries.