20151020
Short 1 NQ 4447.5, +13.00
Long 2 TF 1158.3, 1157.7, -0.0, +1.8
Short 1 TF 1163.9, +0.7
Long 2 TF 1163.8, 1163.8, +0.5, +1.2
Total NQ +13.00
Total TF +4.7
Holding the position for the better piece of the excursion is often the more challenging thing about trading. Getting in is easy, on the other hand. In fact, getting in is often too easy and facilitated for no other reason than an eagerness often just to pull the trigger, or an anxiety that the profits are passing you by like numbers on filling station meter. "Where's mine?", you might be say to yourself. And nothing can be more endemic to bad trading than the anxiety that ensues when--after you have exited a position too soon and can do nothing but watch the profits in that dollar meter roll on to someone else--you feel compelled to fade the trend as if to capture the profits you are missing in the remainder of the excursion while revenging your stupidity. Don't try to get even with the failure from your stupidity. Instead, take a moment and examine where you were mentally when you let the better position go too soon. What can be learned about this for next time? What were the technical event minutia that arrived simultaneously to lend this particular swing reversal such and extended excursion...? ...and, how do I translate that into a better trade management plan next time? "When this....then that." Those are your action triggers to either take a larger position, or hold on to something as a runner as the trade from these more complete event criteria unfolds.
