Thoughts on Overtrading

[calamitychris]

I've been reviewing the trades I have taken over the past few months and noticed that the first trade of the day is my bread and butter. Perhaps its because its I am fresh and unclouded by market noise or my strategy works better on the open. Either way I have a bad habit of trading after this and giving back a lot of profits

Does anyone have some personal rules for overtrading? I've been thinking about quitting for the day, once a profit it realized. Sometimes I just feel the need to continue trading and its just gets me in trouble.

Thanks

[Dogpile]

sounds like you have a good set-up and some set-ups that aren't so good. simple solution -- keep the set-ups that work and discard the ones that don't.

for me, I try to form a thesis and then look for price action that confirms that. I then have set-ups that fit that thesis. If the thesis plays out, I stop trading. If the thesis is wrong, I take a break and may or may not trade again.

[feb2865]

You can quit once you're in profit. There's nothing wrong with it. Remember, it's your money on the line. Markets will be there next morning. But if you still think you can stretch it out a little bit more here's some questions for you.

1) do you scacle out postions?
2) Do you trail stops?
3) Do you have a daily target you want to achieve?
4) is going back to the market affects your money management control?
5) what type of market conditions are required for you to do a re-entry?
6) Do you use market/limit orders for entry?
7) are you totally sure your technicals are aligned as well as they did on your first entry??
8) when you said the first trade of the day..is that like at the opening, half morning etc??