20140924
Long 1 YM 16985, -7
Long 2 ES 1973.0, 1973.0, +1.5, +2.5
Short 2 TF 1114.6, 1114.7, +1.3, +0.7
Long 3 TF 1110.7, 1110.7 1110.4, +0.7, -0.8, -0.4
Long 2 TF 1109.7, 1110.1, +2.2, +0.7
Long 2 TF 1109.3, 1109.4, +1.5, +0.5
Total YM -7
Total ES +3.0
Total TF +6.4
The ideal in trading, as they say, is to be completely lacking in emotion. Like Andy Warhol's famous line, "I want to be a machine." You're supposed to be able to forget immediately about a bad trade and also a previous bad day. If neither have triggered some maximum loss allowable level set aside as part of the money management rules in your Trade Plan, then the next trade or next day should come as easily as the previous, even if in recovery from losses. But of course, we are not machines, and attempts to pretend so are futile. But we can apply good discipline to our trading and accept the situation where the recovery from a losing day gets us at least back in sync, even if there were further trading opportunities left on the table once those previous losses were recovered. And so it was I found myself exiting the last position taken in the TF, with all the requisite features of being the probable low of the decline, in order to exit safely with all the money back from yesterday's losing day, with a little to spare. At least that kept me from 2 losing days in a row, something that throws me back to the simulator, and helps return the confidence that is normally required to Trade the Plan. Stay focused.
