Friday Notes - Avoiding Another Wednesday

3:40pm Today was important for me in one regard ... to close the week on a positive note considering the events of this week which obviously made it difficult for me to focus 100% on a business that requires 120% focus. And it wasn't going to be easy due to another non-market commitment that took me to Atlanta.

Thankfully, we had the oh-so-textbook morning after trend setup (insert "monster" before "trend"), and this time I refused to let anything stop me from shorting the first decent climb and buying the first meaningful pullback ... and I mean anything which included needing to transition to the new (June) front-month contract, trading on two hours sleep and on my 11" laptop via Sprint wireless, and a chance of repeating Wednesday's opening sequence opportunity loss -- from which I'm still steamed and which served as positive motivation today -- due to other morning priorities that brought me to Atlanta.

And while I kept size very modest given the circumstances -- especially the lack of sleep and Sprint connection -- I'm fairly pleased with the day's acceptable +$10K chip gain and was more than happy to close up shop early today and get this very tough week behind me once and for all. Forget the week's +$27K gain and another 5/5 week ... as I'd grade much of this week's performance of errors and omissions a D at best.

Of the two major sequences, I found the midday turn off the 30-minute support the tougher to trade as the market tried its best to shake anyone with less than full conviction. You knew there were a ton of traders looking for that first strong retracement, and as usual when the whole world is looking for something, the market makes it tough. Nevertheless there were three opportunities to get 2-3 points with very tight stops, and I caught decent pieces of the 11:58am and 12:25pm snapbacks.

And so this week that I've wanted to forget can now finally be tossed aside, and at least I can head into the weekend in an improved frame of mind.

I'm still not on top of my game this year ...that much is certain.

And while the wins continue to pile up as the chip stack slowly but steadily grows, I'm still searching for that one significant moment when I get over this first quarter "sleepwalking" phase that I've referenced several times this year.

Less needs to be left in the locker room and more left on the court.

All of it.