January 25th

Just before 3:00, I had a chance to sign in on the markets to paper-trade and focused on TNA since it was the one that popped up on my screen. I started marking the "What's Familiar" on the chart in little white lines... those candlesticks that have importance to me as likely indicators of direction change. While I did not take the short, I pegged the one at 2:55 pm and then watched it drop... I continued to watch and absorb what was printing in front of me... then, I felt that a surge was about to occur at 3:25pm so I went long and was rewarded with a gain. I sold too soon but am happy for the winner. The next candle was a near-doji and one of my personal indicators of reversal. I waited for confirmation that the 3:40 candle was going to clear the low of the 3:25 candle then went short. I exited too soon again with a scalp gain. The 5-minute time frame ended at the bottom of the candle so I jumped in long for the expected reversal... Sure enough, there it was and I picked up another scalp gain. Practice trading is fun when you feel like you are "zoning in" on market movement.

January 22

Messed around with some papertrading this afternoon and had some success playing slight pullbacks of the downdraft in TNA. For some reason I just can't shake my impulse to fade the trend. This is something I must work on if I am to become a trader for money. Trading with the trend is by far the prefered approach.
A good week-end to all!

January 21

Wow, the markets were lively today! Too bad I was out pretty much all day on Day-Job. I did get a chance to sit in on the markets for the last hour or so and saw many practice trades I might have taken. However, I was content to mark my charts and watch closely at the movement of FAS and TNA. For a person who knows how to trade, today was a banner day. I'm still looking forward someday to being practiced enough to get in with real money on days like today. I did take a practice trade long in FAS off the deep dip candle that happened at 3:05 pm. At the next candle, near its bottom when I felt the momo had subsided, I went long then sold a bit early but for a winner. Then, I closed out a TNA short from yesterday afternoon which I had held overnight (something I would not do with real money), also for a gain. I took one more trade at the close, a long in TNA. The trade did not work out and I sold it for a loser about 15 seconds before EOD. I was originally looking for a rally off support around 43.75 but the EOD dump was too strong. Support was finally found by TNA but it was at the LOD.