Thursday, April 9, 2009

Thursday Notes - "Clear!"

3:50pm Well, I'm chalking the week up to vacation from a P&L perspective as I'm still not quite in sync with the current market rhythm, including dealing with often non-existent volatility and making the effective transition today from Europe to the U.S. market after the earnings news began to hit the wires this morning.

As far as today's trade goes, I at least managed to cut an early five digit loss (the result of some early aggressive U.S. shorting) to an acceptable -$6K chip scratch once I finally figured out sellers had begun their long weekend early.

And while I admit I'm pressing more than I can remember in quite a while, the good news is I seem to be minimizing the cost of blinds and antes. Let me put it this way: Considering (1) the market's poor intraday rhythms this week, and (2) my week's overall performance that I'd frankly grade a C at best, I'm rather shocked my chip stack didn't take a hit more than the actual -$5K on the week. It should be down -$20Kish easily all things considered. So perhaps some some subconscious chip preservation mode has kicked in ... who knows.

As I said in my talk last night, I tend to best feel the market's pace when it's volatile and emotion is rampant (sort of like playing Poker with a table full of players on emotional "tilt"). And for now, I'm not feeling the other market players emotions, which is ultimately what drives confidence, price movement, and creates those funny lines we call charts and indicators.

My only current concern is I'm not mad at my week's performance (or perhaps I should say my "weak" performance). That in itself raises a red flag to me as frustration is usually what fuels the next hard run. That or a hard smack which hasn't happened since the infamous February 10th.

Maybe I need to be mad at not being mad.

Anything to fuel motivation and jump start the trading heart's current rhythm.

Hand me the defibrillator paddles.

Clear!

5 comments:

mtcx2009 said...

My system had 100+ signal days but now is averaging in the 30's. Volatility has really decreased as you have noticed. Is this the first sign of the 5 point range ES days coming back? Hopefully never. Do you have any insight into those days, I think it was late 2005 or in 2006, really small Emini ranges. It is before i was watching the markets every day.

James Stollenwerck said...

Don,

Ummmmmm.....the thing getting me about price action the past few days is price goes to whatever level it wants to be at and then goes sideways for a period longer than I'm comfortable with, particularly Wednesday morning after the US open and today around 10:40.

I scalped out of a lot of positions at a small profit because I gave up, but I was premature more often than I want to admit.

I'm stuck in that conundrum between self preservation vs. having conviction to let the position work to the target exit.

I'm shaking my head.

E said...

Don,

Not sure this is even relevant, but I was wondering:

On a "normal day" what would you estimate is the % of the "time" when you are in trading mode that you are actually "in the market"?

(Like snowflakes or finger-prints,I realize there is no normal day.)

Have a nice weekend all.

Severino said...

Hello traders,

Want to have some fun? Go to Searchme.com and put in eminis.
(To go through faster keep clicking on arrow on the bottom.)

Don I was a little surprised that you did not come up. (Not saying you want to).
After looking at your home page no where does it say eminis only E-mini.

I think it would serve the trading community well if you put the word in there so others
can reap the rewards and truths from following a professional like so many of us have.

Severino

Don Miller said...

Sev - Not looking for exposure ... if they find me, great.

E - A tiny, tiny % of the time. I'm most often in cash.