Friday, May 8, 2009

Friday Notes - Next Hole

4:00pm Short post today as I'm already mentally moving on to Monday with a rather sloppy -$3K chip stack nick largely due to transaction costs as my timing was slightly off from the day's outset.

Much of the ding came from a poor sequence on the noon climb as I (and many others by the look of the charts) leveraged off the 920 approach for a short sequence that I hit into the trap and had to scamper as I was a bit slow in aligning myself with a reverse long on the pullbacks once it was apparent shorts were stuck. And who's to know better than a "stuck short" ... thus the desire to often feel the market's current by swimming in it vs. watching from the shore.

I was also a bit early on buying the morning pullback as it was highly likely that (1) the market wouldn't do the same thing twice in a row in terms of completing giving it up, and (2) stuck shorts from yesterday had to buy any decent retracement, both of which turned out to be correct ... just later in the day.

And so we go from a day where I wasn't too pleased with a decent gain to one where I'm actually "accepting" (there's that word again) of today's slight nick since I made a couple of decent afternoon liquidity trades to cut the day's loss by about 70%. Yet for the week, there's still plenty of room for improvement after a rather placid +$23K performance.

As always, the day's or week's score means squat except in aggregation in 237 days.

There simply continue to be far too many holes left on the '09 course to focus on any one.

We just have to keep swinging.

Look for The Weekend Trader as always.

5 comments:

Bluebear said...

Don, your blog helps me keep things in perspective. I am currently struggling and thinking of the bigger picture makes a difference.
Joe

Sith-Trader said...

Hi Don,

I've been followed your blog recently and I want to say thank you for the inspiration. Your "Og Mandino's" word truly enhance my trading performance as I've been micro-analyzing day by day even as I made consequtive profit. The more days I made profit the more I am aware that all my profit will smoked instantly with only a little complacency.

One thing I want to ask about your trading style is : I think your trading style is based on reversal movement as you're very good when market was volatile or big wave. And you're very-very good with market like 2008. You like divergence, bear/bull trap, fake breakthrough, fading, and so on. It's just my opinion and correct me if I am wrong.

Once again, thanks for the great inspiration. It's like a revelation for me as better is never enough. There's always room for improvement.

Sith-Trader said...

I just want to say thank you for you inspiring blog. The 'Og Mandino's word' really punch me to the heart. It keep me micro-analyzing and study even when I had consequtive win as just a little complacency may wiped away all my profit. Keep up the good blog and is it strange that I am more impressed about how you're consistently good trade rather than your profit? And I am more impressed that you can keep your loss at very low level.

estrader said...

Don,

Do you subscribe or listen to trader audio of the s&p500 pit traders in chicago as an extra instrument indicator to your daily trading?

Don Miller said...

Bluebear -

Thanks.

De'Trader (Great nick) -

I'd say you're pretty much on target, although I'd simply classify myself as a short-term trader looking for any decent wholesale entry point, regardless of setup or pattern.

es -

K.I.S.S. A few charts and that's about all I want. There's enough noise in my brain that I have to block out, never mind another outside influence :-).

Don