May 22nd

I'm going to call it quits for the day at 12:45 pm. I have many things to do to prepare for the Memorial Day holiday week-end and I'll have to begin before end of day.

I had a pretty easy time of it today but i still am a bit shy about holding my winners. I'm still trying to get a feel for true changes of direction as opposed to fake outs. As such, I sell rather than give up gains. I'll studysome charts over the week-end to try to get a feel for volume and where these changes of direction take place. Monday is a holiday and Tuesday is a very busy Day-Job day so I don't expect to be back in front of the markets until next Wednesday. I'm still reading Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas so I'll work on that to keep my mind on stocks.

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To all American Veterans of military service out there...
You serve at often lousy pay, in less than ideal conditions, sometimes horrible conditions, while offering your lives in defense of the United States. You serve out of responsibility for your fellow Sailors, Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, and Coast Guardsmen beside you. Thank you.
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And for those who have been wounded or killed in action, may God stand by you and keep you forever. No words can describe the sacrifice you have laid at the altar of freedom. I am humbled before you.
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To my late father Henry, US Navy 1944-1946, I honor you and wish every day that you were still here with us.
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To my late mother Rosalie, who during the same period struggled to keep the home going and raise a baby daughter while worrying that her husband would not return; working in the shipyard filling in for the men who were away at war; you too deserve the recognition afforded those on Memorial Day and my love and gratitude. It is often said that the toughest job in the armed forces is that of spouse to he or she who serves; you knew it first hand.
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8 for 8 winners, a 100% success rate. Gain of $1,071 in about 2.5 hours of paper-trading

May 21

Mrs. Bluecollar just got back from a half-day at work and we're going out to enjoy the beautiful weather we are having today. We in northern New England don't get a lot of these days; warm temps, a light breeze, and low humidity. So, we're taking full advantage by getting on the Harley and hitting the road. I'll sum up the morning of paper-trading by saying that I enjoyed it and despite a couple losses from stop-outs, I had a chance to hit part of a small trend in GS for $595 and scalp some pullbacks. I REALLY had to force myself to not sell out the GS trade for a quick gain. I only took about half the move available, but that is much better than I have been doing lately. I think I can train myself to do better, to stay in longer, once I have confidence in my ability to recognize the slowing/turning of whatever trend I am in. As I post this, I see a very nice trend down in SKF as the markets bounce. A trend which began about 11:00am where I was scalping reversals on the large divergence from the mean. That would have been a great short entry on SKF, confirming that my old triggers can be very reliable entries at the start of trends. After all, a trend has to begin with a reversal of direction, right? The following stats do not include one break-even trade .
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5 for 7 winners, a 71% success rate. Gain of $815 in about 2 hrs of paper-trading.
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Saw something here that I had to take a screen shot of and post it. For some time, Scott at Fear & Greed has instructed to keep an eye on volume of the indices. So, note the very light volume on the QQQQ at 9:55am corresponding to the large red candle on the Q's chart; long candle but no volume committment in this move down. I'm thinking a reversal to scalp... the next candle gave a chance to scalp out some gains but it also turned out to be red... but with very little price movement accompanying its large relative volume, also a sign that a reversal might be coming. Sure enough, the 10:05 candle was a nice upward move and the SRS had a nice LONG red candle down of 41 cents per share corresponding with it; I don't know if it will last and become a trend, but it's a very nice scalp, if that's your thing.

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May 20th - No trades expected

I don't expect to trade today because of Day-Job appointments. As it stands currently, I should be able to get back in on Thursday and Friday, although probably not all day.
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It's currently 5:25 am and I've been awake for 2 hours. Like the night before, I woke up with my mind churning over the markets; entries, stops , exits, wins and losses. I could never have believed even a year ago that I would have as much passion for something. I've never experienced anything like this in my life. Not in high-school sports, not in my high school or college studies, not in my early jobs, not even in my business of nearly nineteen years. In nothing I've ever tried have I approached the drive and will to succeed as I do with trading. In nothing I've ever tried have I experienced so much frustration and difficulty. Perhaps the two are related, eh?
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I constantly re-evaluate my trading education, considering changes that I feel will help me learn. On Monday I changed my general approach to focus more on trading in the direction of trend instead of strictly playing the reversals of trend for quick gains. Yesterday, I changed the way I calculate my won/loss percentage. I am now considering a change to how I process my entries to trades. I have a one-click entry and exit setting on my IB platform. This standardizes all my entries and exits to an inflexible, pre-set share lot; in my case, 1000 shares. The ease of use and quickness of this feature has made it a terrific tool. But, I am now considering going back to manual entry in order to allow varied share lots. I am toying with the idea of scaling my entry trades; initially using small lots like 200 shares and adding more weight as a pattern develops. If the trade moves counter to my direction, the effect will be minimal when my stop is tripped. When I am confident that the trade is going right for me, I will enter progressively more shares; 300 shares, then 500 as a trend develops. What this would allow me to do is mitigate my losses from getting stopped out so much while I learn to perfect my entries and also while I learn to recognize the choppy, range-bound periods which will send my losses soaring. If I do this, it will also necessitate that I start measuring my wins and losses in dollars and cents and not "cents per share," as I have been since the start of the blog. This is something which I must do anyway as I get closer to trading my real account. I may do this next week or sooner if I figure out how to make the changes in the IB platform. I still want to use one click for my exits, however. When it's time to get out, I don't want to mess with manual entry.
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Good luck to all today!