I don't expect to trade today because of Day-Job appointments. As it stands currently, I should be able to get back in on Thursday and Friday, although probably not all day.
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It's currently 5:25 am and I've been awake for 2 hours. Like the night before, I woke up with my mind churning over the markets; entries, stops , exits, wins and losses. I could never have believed even a year ago that I would have as much passion for something. I've never experienced anything like this in my life. Not in high-school sports, not in my high school or college studies, not in my early jobs, not even in my business of nearly nineteen years. In nothing I've ever tried have I approached the drive and will to succeed as I do with trading. In nothing I've ever tried have I experienced so much frustration and difficulty. Perhaps the two are related, eh?
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I constantly re-evaluate my trading education, considering changes that I feel will help me learn. On Monday I changed my general approach to focus more on trading in the direction of trend instead of strictly playing the reversals of trend for quick gains. Yesterday, I changed the way I calculate my won/loss percentage. I am now considering a change to how I process my entries to trades. I have a one-click entry and exit setting on my IB platform. This standardizes all my entries and exits to an inflexible, pre-set share lot; in my case, 1000 shares. The ease of use and quickness of this feature has made it a terrific tool. But, I am now considering going back to manual entry in order to allow varied share lots. I am toying with the idea of scaling my entry trades; initially using small lots like 200 shares and adding more weight as a pattern develops. If the trade moves counter to my direction, the effect will be minimal when my stop is tripped. When I am confident that the trade is going right for me, I will enter progressively more shares; 300 shares, then 500 as a trend develops. What this would allow me to do is mitigate my losses from getting stopped out so much while I learn to perfect my entries and also while I learn to recognize the choppy, range-bound periods which will send my losses soaring. If I do this, it will also necessitate that I start measuring my wins and losses in dollars and cents and not "cents per share," as I have been since the start of the blog. This is something which I must do anyway as I get closer to trading my real account. I may do this next week or sooner if I figure out how to make the changes in the IB platform. I still want to use one click for my exits, however. When it's time to get out, I don't want to mess with manual entry.
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Good luck to all today!
