I like to write the postmortem of my day trading after I catch some sleep. It makes my mind clearer.
Dear diary,

Ok, yesterday I made a good trade with 1-R loss. (Good trade with loss!??!, nut!) I said good trade, because the trade was executed and stopped out as planned. No rule was broken.

Of course, I can’t feel great with 1-R loss, but that’s part of trading. I have been reading about options expirations on Mike’s blog. After doing some quick research on the web and short discussion with Vincent, basically, options expirations implies high volatility and whipsaw trading. I am not sure if the implication is remarkable, though some traders choose to step away from market on these days. I need some experience before jumping into conclusion. I will take the trade if dummy set up appears. (Here it goes, my first experience ended up with 1-R loss, #!@#$*@#)

While discussing trading multiple positions concurrently, Vince mentioned this point

KEY to trading multiple positons : “Once you are in a trade your job is to just manage the stops and forget about the market action during the day – this will keep the emotional level low. Only use market levels to reset your stops or to take partial profits and the trading plan will take care of itself.”

I think he really got the point. After establishing positions, our job is basically managing the stops. No prediction, no gut feeling and no monkey acting. Manage the stops according to our plan.

Mike left some good comments on my blog which I think I gotta quote it here.

A couple of things may help. Create rules for when and how you can move your stops. I found that moving my stops before being in the trade for an hour was making me miss moves by stopping me out too quickly.

It may also help to define your maximum loss for any 1 day. THis is an idea I got from John Carter?s book. That?s part of his business plan. 3R is my ?cry uncle? point. If I lose that much I wind things down for the day and just wait for an ?easier day? to try to make my money back?

Good points!
It is a long journey of learning and refining my trading strategies. Along the way, I should feel lucky to know these good people who are willing to share their opinion and experience. After all, there is really no secret in trading. It is just a job that I need to set my own rules, and monitor my inner self and ‘behave myself’ within the boundary of my own ‘Law of trading’.