May 11th

Closing things down early today paper-trading the markets as a day-job appointment at 3:15pm must be met.
It is now evening and I am throwing in a few details about today. First, I strayed from regular plays by trading in 5 different stocks; GS for + 17 cents per share, QLD for + 24.7 cents per share, RIMM for +22.4 cents per share, SKF for +20 cents per share, and SRS for +15.5 cents. I really liked the early action in the QQQQ's and played some QLD for the first time ever because of it. What I'm finding is that the skills I've been working on, such as they are, seem to work on lots of issues; ETF, listed shares, and nasdaq stocks. Today I mostly faded strong diversions from the mean accompanied by decent volume, in anticipation of pullbacks. One of these days I'll try to figure out how to ride with the momentum and not fade it! Until then, this is what I have. 15 trades spread out over 5 stocks, on 9 positions in 4.5 hours of paper-trading. All positions for winners, although some individual trades that made up those positions were not winners.
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10 for 15 winning trades; a 67% success rate. Gain of $1.00 per share.

Book Review

As I mentioned a week or so ago, Mrs. Bluecollar purchased Mark Douglas' book, "Trading in the Zone" for me. I received it last week from Amazon and have had a chance to read the first chapter. So far, so good. In fact: so far, so awesome. This is exactly what I was looking for and I can't wait to read more.
I'm hoping I don't run afoul of copyright laws when I excerpt:
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"...I can state without a doubt that there are specific reasons why the best traders consistently out-perform everyone else. If I had to distill all of the reasons down to one, I would simply say that the best traders think differently from the rest."
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and:
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"The defining characteristic that separates the consistent winners from everyone else is this: The winners have attained a mind-set-- a unique set of attitudes--that allows them to remain disciplined, focused, and, above all, confident in spite of the adverse conditions. As a result they are no longer susceptible to the common fears and trading errors which plague everyone else. Everyone who trades ends up learning something about the markets; very few people who trade ever learn the attitudes that are absolutely essential to becoming a consistent winner."
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I will continue to snip out great pieces of this book, write it here, and credit it accordingly in hope that it will inspire you to pick up the book yourself.

May 8th

Between day-jobs and some other duties, I was able to sneak in to trade a bit from the open to about 10:45am.

Five trades, four in SKF and one in GS. Modest gains as has been my plan of late. Take my profits and preserve my win rate. Although, my long entry on SKF at 9:47 was a great entry at the beginning of the reversal off the morning move and one I could have stayed with for a terrific gain! But, I sold it out. Clearly, I still need work on my exits. I sold it for a $.13 cent per share gain but the whole move was about $1.61 per share. I got only 8% of it after getting in long within 44 cents of the very bottom.

But, I am grateful for a gain on that trade and for the day.

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4 for 5 today; an 80% win rate. Gain of 43 cents per share.