EOD - Boot Camp Day

First off, I am very happy and am finishing the day with a positive feeling. I took 15 trades split between SKF and AAPL. It was my first down day in weeks but as I posted earlier, I am not focused on wins/losses or dollars lost/gained today. That wasn't what today was about. That said, after 15 trades, I was down less than $165. By the day's end, I was so confident about my ability to adhere to my stops and sit on my winners longer, that I actually started to paper-trade the big EOD move in the market. Notably, I waited on SKF to sink and at 3:04 pm, went long at $42.13. I caught it two cents from the low of the day at that point and rode the rebound up to $42.34 at 3:17 pm. I sold the move 5 cents from the top, catching 78% of the pop. I must say it felt great to hang in on a run like that but I also must say that I had to force myself to stay in... especially when the trade came down to two cents from my entry, before making its climb.
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Part of the reason I didn't want to focus on the gains or losses today is that I had a few trades stop out that had some respectable positive gains. The first trade of the day, I stopped out at scratch (+$15) after being as much as 46 cents up ($230) before reversing. At that point in the day, I was planning on just going round-trip on trades; ordinarily, I would have taken a good portion of that move. On many of my early stop-outs, I made note that if I had immediately reversed instead of exiting and watching, I would have taken gains in excess of the amount lost. This is certainly something which experienced traders routinely do and I must open my mind to doing this. It only makes sense, right? If I'm wrong in one direction, more than likely the stock is going the other way and not just sitting still. I just have to be aware of choppiness and getting stopped-out to death! Those $40-$50 stop losses add up if one plays every move inside a choppy price-channel.
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I am not going to give a play-by-play of each trade but I did want to note that on SKF, I stopped out on a short at 10:44am at $43.09. SKF felt frothy and I really had a sense that it was going to break down. Well, after the stop-out at $43.17 (8 cents), it ran another 7 cents and then dropped. I was stopped out on a short that was only 7 cents from the HOD! SKF dropped 1.38 to its low of day then closed the day down nearly a dollar from where I went short. What does this mean? It means nothing, really, because every trader can say "if" this, and "if" that to many trades every day. However, I think it is an indication that my trading instincts are not too bad and they simply need refinement. I have reason to be hopeful, and that is what is most important to me now.
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This morning's post mentioned that I would post a chart but I will not be posting a chart as it would take too long to mark all the trades.

Boot Camp

Tired of blowing off my stops then adding to losers to compensate for a bad entry and tired of cutting winners short with no good reason, today I am sending myself to "Basic Training," stock traders' boot camp for the day!
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I will be placing my orders as always. However, I will NOT be exiting trades until they stop out or until EOD, whichever comes first (on a day like yesterday with strong trend in one direction, it could mean one trade lasting the entire day). A protective stop will be set at 8 cents from entry. If the trade goes in my favor and it enters a third 5-minute candle without stopping out, I will move my stop to breakeven. I'll add to a winner if it seems right and I may scale out that added amount... but absolutely no exit on the original position except at the stop. To stay engaged, I'll mark a magenta colored line/spot where I believe I should exit the primary trade then see how close to the change of direction it was. My focus will be kept to price momentum and volume of the stock and the nasdaq/S&P indices. At the EOD, I'll review the performance and post the chart of trades. I won't be keeping trade stats today as I usually do; win/loss percentage or dollar gain/loss.
Hopefully, this exercise will force me into fundamentally sound performance.
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Good luck to all today!