Monday, June 15...frustration sets in

There are days when I wonder if the frustration is worth it...today I vent.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy trading, the analysis, the watching market activity.

When I have a bad day, I learn from the poor ideas to avoid certain setups. I learn better how to judge and move stop settings. I get just that little bit more comfortable with the whole plan and execution. I have been getting better at entries and not entering when I shouldn't. I feel OK about the fact that I had a down day.

Good days, they speak for themselves, who can feel down on a good day?

But there are days that are in between. I know that missing a move is expected and there is little chance of catching every move over the course of the day. As I do not trade for a living (far from it yet) and I do other work during the day, I have interruptions in trading. I work trading into my schedule as I can. This is a huge problem with respect to trading for a profit.

This leads to a day like today.

Last week was a range week and I watched and learned. I made some trades and lost some trades, noted how the volume affected Friday's trading and how the week slowed right down to that day.

Without getting into the whole analysis I was planning my trades around a drop in the market today below the low of last week. In that I was not disappointed.

To keep the story short I placed a trade with a too tight stop, I see that now and should have seen it at the time...lesson leaned. I watched as the price did not come back to the entry I wanted...I actually set it well but hesitation had me miss it. I tried twice more unsuccessfully, only due to other issues interfering with my attention on the charts. By the time I could concentrate I entered a trade against my TICK timing and at a point in the pattern where a reversal was at least as likely as a continuation.

I fell prey to the "trade for the sake of being in a trade" trap. Frustration at missing trade entries clouded my judgement.

I knew that the trade was likely to go against me but I "hoped" that I would be wrong (HUH?) and the trade would go in my favour.

So I hope that I learned this lesson...although this is a recurring theme in my trading, that I miss some of the best moving days, even though my plan is sound.

I am going to have some lunch and review my plan, my setups and my mindset for the day to see if I can make some decent trades in the afternoon.

Jeff.