Monday Notes - The Sideways Shuffle

6:15pm I'll call today "The Sideways Shuffle" -- which is a dance I don't do very well -- so I made like a wallflower during much of today's session looking for deeper retracements to short, as well as a possible late day squeeze north which has been the norm of late yet never materialized today.

Oh, I caught a couple of TICK extreme fades and initial pullbacks to short, yet purposely kept a very tight leash on positions (even tighter than normal for me!) until the dance tune decided to change ... and I'm still waiting ... which resulted in a very modest day barely worth acknowledging. And we'll stay with our recent theme of only checking the P&L weekly.

One event I had to fight through for the first time since I can remember was a slight order entry slip in stopping a probing long position after the post-open barf tried to turn north (1-minute had turned up). Specifically, I manually hit the bid (a reminder all my trades are manual) and thought I'd exited my 30 lot once the trade premise broke down, before briefly glancing away from the screen and then back again only to notice I was still long 30 contracts. Fortunately, I didn't walk away from the screen ... duh. I still don't know what happened unless I clicked on the DOM line between two bid levels which thus resulted in no action, which is almost impossible to do, but the only explanation I could come up with. It certainly won't affect my entry or exit mechanics as it was simply an anomaly.

That took me out of rhythm a bit, as well as costing me a point or so on the exit as I worked to scale out as quickly as possible to regroup without joining the panicking retail longs who were waving the early white flag.

And while I'd normally be looking to tomorrow morning with great "morning after trend" anticipation, I wouldn't exactly call today's action a "trend", as it was more sideways after the first hour than anything.

And so this never-ending double-sided 3D puzzle we call the market continues.

I guess it's a good thing I like puzzles ... except when it comes to doing the sky, which is what today felt like for me.

btw, great back and forth discussion in the comments to yesterday's post. For whatever reason, this crazy little diary is beginning to feel more and more like that dust speck in "Horton Hears a Who" in terms of a community that is taking on an industry life of its own while defying popular convention. Maybe we won't kill it after the upcoming one year mark of the experiment is over.