May 28 (Gain $10.60)

A lot of distractions today but i still spent much of the day watching the action in TNA.  Practice trading, I had a good trade idea for a short at $51.30 with a stop at $51.51 It would have yielded near $1.50 per share gain.  Two other trade ideas would have stopped out; the last one a long at 51.40 at 3:15 pm stopping out by a cent at 3:25 pm before riding the last leg upward into the closing consolidation area.  I evaluated it after the close and found that my stop idea was good but not well executed.  I simply did not put the line where I intended it to go.  But, stopped out is stopped out and can't be counted as a successful practice trade.

In between the two final practice trades was a live trade long, 500 shares TNA at $50.07 and 2:11pm.   It didn't work out and I exited even; a Gain of $10.60  
Price dropped another 27 cents before hitting one of the two primary reversal areas of the day.  I was close to a successful trade but the timing was just a little early.  And early is wrong, so I exited when I had the sense it was going to drop more than I wanted.  And there's no better place than "out" when a trade idea does not work.

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Chart reading skills are pretty good but my three or four primary indicators are difficult to prioritize as price moves up and down through the day.  They are reasonably reliable but often the one that seems to be best suited to the situation at hand is not the one that dictates the momentum.  When I look at a chart at the end of the day, I often see obvious signs of direction change.  While watching the live action, however, the familiar signal could be any one of four or more that work for me.