September 22nd

Up $49 paper trading today, when I could take a moment to look at the screen. No chance at undisturbed focus today. There was just too much going on. These days, just 15 minutes of concentration on the markets is hard to generate. My training is suffering because of day-job concerns and real-life. A perfect world would allow me to trade in peace so I could learn this. Sadly, I am not grasping this trading art quickly enough to stay on this track. As time goes forward, I must dedicate less time to trading. I have to focus instead on my business, the object of my neglect since I started trying to trade.
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Started slow today but finished with some strength. Best trade was pegging the 3:00 pm peak in FAS and letting it ride down some. I got out too soon but I'm glad at the choice I made to short there. At the same time, I was playing ERX the same way, which actually yielded more gain than the FAS.

Sept 20th

A quick scalp of MOS around 10:00 am. This was a good result and a nicely (lucky) timed exit considering the little pop which followed and the fact that this exit marked the low of the day.

While I did sense that momentum had stalled at my exit point, I say "lucky" because the trend was well under way when I shorted into it just after signing into the markets. I hadn't allowed myself a chance to study what was going on. I saw momentum and the red indices so in I went! So certain was I that it would continue its drop that I allowed the trade to climb on the next two candles after my entry. I was too certain and not strict enough on my stop. Two things to work on: stop loss discipline (as always) and assessing my situation before jumping into the stock. In hindsight, the best entries on a trade, considering when I signed in, would have been to wait and get in long where I had exited. Or, wait until the 11:05am candle after the stock had consolidated into a near-doji then broke free; climbing up on a volume rush. In this case, the higher lows in the consolidation preceeding the breakout would have been a clue to direction of the eventual move.

Sept 17th

I scalped a couple winners out of X around noon when I had a chance to sign in to the markets for 30 minutes or so.

No thoughts of trend trading today, I'm just trying to put together some winners, small though they are. Positive numbers are good for the psyche!

I'm trying the dulcet tones of Scott Farnham's trading mantra and it seemed to keep me focused while looking for some scalping chances today. I had it set to replay and it kept my mind in the game.

Today is my 44th birthday so these two winners are a present to myself. No losers today for the first time in recent paper-trading memory, and felt great to have them.

I took both scalps off the high-volume, large red candles at 12:00 and 12:10. The 12:25 candle would have been a nice gainer had I held. Chances are I would have stopped it out though as it dropped 16 cents below my entry.

I'm probably just imagining it, but I actually had a sense that the second trade was going to be a nice reversal. The doji into which I sold and the following red candle with the wide price range but a tight open-to-close price were familiar signs of high-probability direction change.

Thanks to Ynvai and Charlie for their recent posts. I got some "pick me up" from them. Good trading to you both!