May 17 post: Fixed the typos and bad syntax

I re-read yesterday's post and discovered what happens when I type and post without proof reading! It was barely intelligible. I've fixed the mess.

I have no customer appointments today but have two large project bids to produce before day's end. And, I am now tiling floors on my construction project. Maybe some face-time in the markets during lunch break, if I take one.

May 17

With about an hour available to paper-trade, I took a short at/near the LOD in RIG in anticipation that it might continue its drop. It didn't, finding nice support at my entry area and reversing. Instead of exiting, I held. Poor choice there. At a point where movement away from my price seemed to slow and in anticipation of a move back toward my entry, I shorted heavily and averaged a much better price. Poor choice number two. While price did spike up against me after that, the area of that multi-position short held up as the "settled price" of the reversal (see the near-doji of the 3:40pm candle). Price then dropped nicely over the next 10-15 minutes and I exited the second time price pushed my position into the money; a $57 dollar paper-gain for each of the nine parts of my position. The exit was 5 cents from the bottom of the move I was playing.

A short time later in the same candle, a reliable exit sign appeared when the candle ended at its low on a volume spike. The smart play would have been to go long for a scalp here in the last minutes of the day.

There is a repetitious theme in my practice trading. An acceptable feel for movement but poor response to what I sense and in some cases, poor execution. There is certainly room for improvement, so I will endeavor to persevere in that direction.

May 13 EOD update

I got a call from a day-job customer and had to come back to the desk & fire up the computer as a result. The market is closed for the day so I checked the LVS chart, curious as to where my trade placed in terms of later movement. The chart above shows that my short nailed the top of the second peak in a double-top formation. I'm posting this chart, then back to the building project...