Visitor

Our little Maine Coon kitten came to visit me in my office, and I snapped a photo. Not pictured is the little ball; the object of her attention.

March 28

I took last week off from blogging. My results were typical for me... lots of winners coupled with two trades where I didn't use a stop and I closed out for relatively large losses (one over $400 and the other at $1,400). The two losers easily offset my gains and I was down for the week. Had I averaged for better price on both of them by doubling down, I would have made them winners the next day.

I didn't do it, rather I just cut them loose and took the loss. This is part of a program I am attempting to follow: accepting losses, and taking responsibility for not triggering a stoploss by accepting the losses when they are substantial.

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Yesterday was pure drollery, so I accepted an offer to meet my sister for a late lunch; 2:30pm. While away, I missed the big drop in the last hour. No matter, I finished with two small but clean winners in TNA.

March 18

TNA dropped to and retreated from $73.20 support seven times throughout the day so on the eighth, I decided the breakdown was probable and paper-traded short there. Nope, it bounced again. I held for the breakdown that I KNEW was coming before the close. Price came down to same support again at 3:45pm candle... "Vindication!" says I. Opportunity to escape, breaking-even and lucky, right there, but hope is a nasty thing in trading. The traders slapped me again while I hoped for the breakdown by sending it soaring into the close. I am short over the weekend; dumb-ass.

Conventional T/A wisdom states that the more times S/R holds, the stronger it is (Read: higher probablilty of maintaining itself). Often I find myself over-thinking, or better stated, complicating things. It is a tremendous challenge trying to find the balance between following simple T/A principles or making decisions by "gaming" the premise that the market has a goal of fooling the most people it can. Today, simple T/A won. I was too clever by half.