I got beat by the DOW again. AOB was my biggest downer. HDNG recovered after I sold it. I'll be interested to see if my trading expertise beats out the dumb screen. My prediction--it won't.
One of the hardest things for me to do is letting things work themselves out. I always want to help my stock picks with stops, forecasts, premarket chatter and charting, but as I've said in the past, it is rare that my effort helps me make better decisions.
Maybe I need to just accept the fact that I'll never be able to trade unemotionally and develop a plan to minimize the damage my emotions cause. I guess that's kind of what I'm doing now, but I still get ticked off when things don't work out. If anyone has a secret to unemotional trading, please share it.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
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Scott,
I've been trading a mechanical system for two years. After six months I stopped using stops. The biggest reason was that using a stop would frequently turn what would have been small 1-2% loss into a 7-10% loss. I've been trading for 18 months with no stops and I don't regret it.
You currently have some ambiguity and fluidity in your trading rules and I would personally find that emotionally difficult to deal with.
The best quote from Faith's recent book: "Good trading is not about being right, it is about trading right. If you want to be successful, you need to think of the long run and ignore the outcome of individual trades."
That said, if you don't have clear rules, you can't know if your are trading right.
My 2 cents.
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