Whipsawed

I made the assumption that today was a trend day and quickly stopped out of several trades as the market broke through the 50MA. It came down just as quickly so I imagine a lot of traders got smacked around today.

I was too impatient with my trades today and I didn't really wait for confirmation from the averages or from the trades themselves. Take a look.

CVS was probably the closest thing to a good trade today. It went against me for a 2R loss, but I think the setup was there. I took the trade after the bear flag and made money until the reversal near 1:45pm.
DOW was my first trade of the day. I sold it short on the first red candle on the 20MA. It didn't take long for me to stop out as the stock headed for the 50MA. As it turned around, I thought I might have placed my stop too close, but the stock really didn't go anywhere and I would have been stopped around 2pm anyway.

I lost 3.42R today. I violated my rule of quitting after a 2R loss because I was convinced that the market would continue trending down. Dumb.

I went back to my trading journal to figure out why things don't seem to be working for me lately. What I discovered is that I have become much more impulsive with my trading. In August, I seemed to have a lot more patience. I traded only 11 days out of 20. My largest daily loss was 1.83R. I also was trading using 30 minute charts instead of the 5 minute charts that I've been using lately.

Here's the 30 minute chart for DOW.
On this time frame there is no clear entry point or trend. I should have used this chart to confirm whether DOW was a good trade or not.

Here's one that I was following but didn't take.
SOHU had a decent 4.23R potential with much less stress monitoring the 3o minute chart.

I think that I'm going to try and slow down a bit. I seem to do much better at a less frantic pace and my decision making seems to be less impulsive.