4:00pm Well, no streak lasts forever and the consecutive weeks of chip gains ended today at 21 due largely to an aggressive overnight position right before the no-bailout news hit that had bids completely disappearing and futures dropping another 20+ points from immediate overnight support and 40+ points from yesterday's closing barf. Shades of my early October sequence, although I have no problem with the entry ... not much you can do when bids disappear and one has to somehow find a way to manage a stop on large size (was probably around 5-6 pts or so ... still beats the full 20 points though). On the comical side, I was only twelve hours early with a rock solid entry.From there, it was on to some very aggressive intraday scalping (> 8,000 contracts) on the expected "morning-after-trend" oscillations, which I traded OK but not great.
And so we put the cap on an interesting week that in my view was full of difficult rhythms, patterns, and -- most importantly -- market pace given the lengthy market indecision at times and cross-currents with respect to the on-again off-again bailout news. Add to that a week that I frankly didn't trade very well (I'd undoubtedly rate it my poorest week of the year from a skill-performance perspective, and that's all this business will ever be about), and I'm scratching my head wondering how I ended down only -$10K for the week. Then again, it goes to show that the scorecard often doesn't reflect one's performance.
And so ends the week that was. It's now history and irrelevant.
On Monday, all focus is on the week that is.
19 days to go.
Look for Part 2 of my interview with David Penn at TradingMarkets.com tonight. I'll post a direct link shortly when it's up.
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2 comments:
Hi Don,
I saw a blurb on TV ystdy about your man Michael Phelps. He said he trained every day (365/yr) for 5 straight years, while the typical Olympic swimmer practiced 6 out of 7 days. Phelp's advantage was 52 more practices a year x 5 = One big advantage. It got me thinking about the mental aspects of trading and how we often short-change ourselves by thinking we'll burnout or somethng if we "push too hard". I'm finding the opposite to be true. I'm really pushing it (7 days/wk of trading/study) and my mind feels sharper, not duller. Its inspiring to see you in the ring essentially every possible day and yet still making money as opposed to burning out. It has me thinking of my goals for next year. Soldier on.
Hey, Don:
I would echo Chuck's sentiments. Watching you grind it out every day has completely changed how I set goals and review performance.
Ever since I have treated trading as a sport, my performance has improved drastically.
Thanks again for taking the time to do your blog.
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