August 4th

I was able to watch the market early in the session and was prepared to take a trade in my live account if something caught my eye. As has been the case lately, I tend to want to watch closely rather than participate. After a short notice day-job call which took me out of the office through the mid-day, I got back and signed into the practice account. By 1:30, it appeared that the top had been reached in VMC and the retreat was in force. I went short at 49.88 and when the position was positive for 8 cents, I doubled up short on the winner. It retraced a bit so I decided to exit my extra position and stick with the original a bit more. I exited at $49.78. All together, I took 8 cents from it. The kicker is that I did, in fact, peg the top in VMC and my short position was at the early stage of a drop which continued down to $49.37. It rose ftom that point to $49.84 (not touching my entry point of $49.88) and then eased down to $49.16 over the next 50 minutes or so.

My instincts told me I had a good entry, my only trade all day to that point. And, I didn't stick with it, instead getting out early with the quick scalp. Using the $49.84 average position I had short minus the $49.37 bottom of the move I was trading, I had 47 cents available to me. Of that 47 cents, I took 8 cents; only 17%. This is a theme with me. Decent entries on many occasions but no sense of where to exit so I just get out whenever... That really needs work.

The last trade was in VMC, playing the reversal off the nice move up into the close. I took it short at 49.57 and exited with a scalp of about 6 cents. Of that retreat I played, I got pretty much all available to me once I entered. It was never to be anything but a quick in & out as there were only about 4 minutes left in the day when I went in.

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3 for 3, 100% win rate. Gain of $56 in about 3.5 hours of paper-trading.

August 3rd - No Trades Today

No Trades Today, Too much Day Job.

July 31st

I took two trades near the open of the market and scalped an easy $50 in my live account. I was out egregiously early on both however, capturing only 8.5% available to me on the first and 17% available to me on the second. Until I get a specific exit plan in place and until I can become more familiar with this style of trading, I will continue to try only for the easy money.

I moved to my paper-trade account thereafter and was relatively inactive with clicking the buy and sell. Mostly I was watching and mapping movement on the screen, looking for patterns or anomalies which might yield a clue to future movement. I was paying particular attention today to gap-ups and gap-downs between 5-min candles, especially where direction changes. I don't know if there is anything of note there yet. One stock tracked over one day can't yield a measurable trend.

This trek I've set out on sure does take patience. At times, I really feel like I am searching where I shouldn't be searching and probably tripping over what is crucial. One thing has not waned in the months I have been doing this and that is my desire. I still want it very badly. The cost is high though; opportunity costs are far greater than the money I've lost. Yet, here I sit faithfully while the markets are open and I think about the stocks when I am not sitting here.

I just have to keep the faith that I'll absorb it. To all of you who are where I am, I also say, "keep the faith."

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4 for 6 winners for 67% success. Gain of $65 in 6.5 hrs of trading; $50 on 2 for 2 in 2 hrs of live trading and $15 in 4.5 hrs on 2 for 3 paper-trading.