Holy Moly

I made back my losses from yesterday and then I got all conservative and timid as the market rocketed to 11% gains by the end of the day. I've never felt this bad about making money.Most of my gains today were made trading CF. I shorted it for a gap fade after the market rolled over about 10:15. I took profits on the way down because I was nervous about the volatility in the market and in the stock. So I turned a potential 8R gain into a 2.69R gain.

Because nothing worked for me yesterday, I was scared about my losing streak continuing. Nothing worked for me yesterday because I took trades that were outside of my comfort zone and I didn't trade my plan. I continued to trade after I had met my -2R limit trying to get back to even.

That's why it is so important to look at each trade as a unique opportunity. My trades today were completely different from my trades yesterday, but I allowed my failures yesterday to influence my trading today.

My second trade with CF was after the nice bull flag that set up at 2pm. I set up a bracket trade and was going to allow this one to run on auto-pilot, but after the trade triggered, I got scared and dumped it way before it had reached its target (which it went on to meet--and more).

I went back to my days as a "newbie" with my trade on UYG. This was a completely inappropriate trade for me on so many levels. First, I put an order in before the market opened anticipating a huge opening. I knew better (it has NEVER worked for me to put in a market order before the open), and I watched my price get filled at the high. I was down .75R within seconds.

Secondly, there was no setup and no edge to this trade. I thought that the financials would spike today (they did--hours later), but I really had no business trying to get in when I did. Thirdly, I had no logical place to place a stop and determine my "R" value because I didn't know where my order would get filled. Just dumb. I lost 1.08R on that one. It could have been a lot worse if I didn't immediately notice how badly it was going for the ETF.