Thursday, November 20, 2008

** VIDEO ** "Play Your Game"

Some thoughts on the continuing market plummet, today's trade, and the need to "play your game". I'll refer to the monthly SPX and VIX charts below.


















6 comments:

steve said...

Great video today, and thanks for sharing some of your trade diary. Tough day in places with lots of cross-currents.

Anonymous said...

Don:

Thanks for taking the time to post a video.

It's interesting you bring up 'playing your game'. My weakest part of the day is the lunchtime period. I tend to trade the opening sequence with good results, and more often than not, I can pick up the flow of the closing sequence.

I am working on stepping away from the screen during those mid-day hours. Sometimes I'm successful, sometimes not. One thing I have taken from your trading is trying to scale back size during the middle of the day. That has improved my PNL without a doubt.

Thanks again for your comments and good luck tomorrow.

Sean

Charles A Pennison said...

Hi Don,

Not sure why you spent so much time talking about that other blog criticizing you for not trading the last hour.

The focus of any trader should be on what the market is doing, and not on what another trader is doing.

Stay focused on what works for you.

Charles

Don Miller said...

Hi Charles -

That's exactly one of the reasons I brought it up ... that along with playing one's own game regardless of what others say or do.

And given the abundance of advisory services, chatrooms, and even well-meaning trader friends who might advise you to do otherwise based on what works for "them", it's our job to ignore them.

So it wasn't the criticism, rather reinforcement that we all paint the blank canvas with a unique brush.

Stay well.

Don

YM-Trader said...

Hi Don,
Good response to CharlesTrader (no relation to this Chuck the trader) about ignoring the others. I do spend my day in a chat room (no live trade calling)that trades the same thing I do but with a slightly different plan. There are some very skilled people in there. But when I realized that trades they took were irrelevant to me it was sort of any eye-opener. There are no geniuses, there is nobody who gets all the "right" trades. Every tick represents somebody trading a different plan. As a relatively new trader (2 years with a written plan) I'm learning that the best way is actually my way. On goes the light bulb.

Don Miller said...

Click :-).