Thursday, March 12, 2009

Thursday Notes - Worse Than a Transaction Tax?

4:15pm Brief post today as I'm sitting on the tarmac at Logan heading to Atlanta for the next few days. Not much to say about today in terms of tradable action aside from the early morning support test and hold, after which I traded some bear trap extensions long after the 5-minute trend proved itself and turned back up.

The afternoon on the other hand was a slow melt up on plummeting volatility -- which is the only thing worse for a trader than a transaction tax -- which resulted in a give-back of some of the morning wins as I tested a few reversal probes that didn't materialize to end with a very modest net +4K chip gain.

A reminder to check yesterday's late night post to put Wednesday's earlier one in proper persepctive. I admit I'm still not fully healed and simply tried to go back to "grinder" mode today and keep the emotions in check.

I'll update the scorecard for today when able (probably later tonight after I land) ... which will ultimately reflect a light green bottom line on very light trading with some yellow and orange in terms of pace, pattern conviction, and energy level.

9:00pm Plane has landed and scorecard has been updated.

4 comments:

Mf said...

Hey, I couldn't agree with you more in terms of todays action. The danger of forcing trades is extremely high on days like today. No setups for hours... The low volatility grind up all day is the absolute worst type of trading day for my style. I call them 1 or 2 tick days.

Charles said...

RE: "I'm sitting on the tarmac at Logan"...

Don, that could be dangerous out there! I would wait in the terminal's concourse if I were you :)

...just looking for smiles,

-charleS

Don Miller said...

Charles -

Hey, the airlines have budget cuts, remember?

Seriously, it cost me $10 for a glass .. er, a cup of wine and a 1/4 can of Pringles.

Don

Don Miller said...

John -

Consider it vented.

As I told a friend the other day, when you've hit rock bottom, the good news is there's usually only one way to go from there, and on top of that, there's a solid Rock beneath you.

And while I don't give advice here, it's likely that every reader of this diary has been there, and it's one reason I formally added the "No Regrets" goal to my personal scorecard. Just focusing on that one objective seems to help me at times, including having one simple goal for the next day of scoring that single element green for the day.

It's amazing how easy it seems sometimes to forgive others, yet we're much tougher when it comes to forgiving ourselves. At least I know I am.

All I know is if we let events or people take away our personal joy, then they've won.

My hunch is you've uncovered the Rock to support your climb.

Best wishes on your new journey.

Don