Prejudice. I always have this problem when I am looking for trade. Today’s action showed my problem again. subconsciously, I was thinking the market “Should’ sell down. The “Should” limited me. I was not flexible to look for other trading opportunity. Because of this ‘Should’, I gave myself a lot of excuses, like ‘ moving avarage is trending down, there were resistance up there blah blah blah’. In the hindsight, I do not think these thoughts are judgement calls, instead, they are excuses to be inflexible.

I am not saying my last stopped out ES trade was bad trade. The trade was established according to plan. But, after the trade was closed, I just can’t switch myself back. I was still in ‘Shorting’ mood for the rest of the day. Looking back at charts, there were a couple of nice scalping setup, should I be not so inflexible.

Mental problem. I acknowledge this problem. I am going to fix this. Fix my own brain.

Well, I received an email from Tradestation this morning. Though I am yet to receive my refund, I am glad with their prompt response. I was informed about the billing issue when I gave them a call yesterday, and, a formal email reply is received within 1 working day.

After reviewing our November billing, we have determined you were billed in error for the TradeStation platform ($99.95) and/or RadarScreen ($59.95). In October, you did meet the thresholds for these fees to be waived. We will process a credit for the amounts you were billed. We apologize for any inconvenience you experienced and we are working to insure this does not happen again.

Thank you,
…..

After watching the market until lunch time, I decided to call it day. Nothing interesting. We have Non Farm payroll (employment situation) report tomorrow.
What a boring day.

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I am still preparing photos of my Malaysia trip. Here are the preview. My mum’s latest pet. His name is ??(millionaire). Trust me, he is a good fighter.

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Dear diary,
Now, I can only start trading after 1030pm Singapore time due to the daylight savings thingy. Well, no big deal. But, the stupid flu virus is trying very hard to hit me. I am popping in Multivitamin before start trading.

First, No dummy. I did not see any low risk dummy entry today though NQ were having a down day.
Secondly, I don’t have a plan to trade when market gap up and subsequently moving down. I decided to give it a miss before I have a concrete plan for this type of condition. I have been watching squeeze play (bollinger band breaks out from keltner channel)? for the past few days, I do not start trading this strategy as I can’t figure out the exit point. From my experience of dummy trading, my trading result will suffer when I do not have a target.

Well, let’s trade better tomorrow.

Dear diary,

A quick and short one. I did not make any trade. The market movement today was not my liking. Well, is this because of option expiration? No idea.

I was tempted to scalp here and there, but, I did not, I was not ready. Now market is closed. The feeling of not losing money is pretty good as well. 😉

I am taking a day off tomorrow. Option expiration Friday? Not sure what is the implication on index futures. I will spend some time to study instead of trading.

Be a better trader.

Dear diary

After watching pre market of Dow futures,  I thought I would have made some trades today.Well, at the end of the day, I did not make any trade. There was no low risk dummy set up.

Just how limited is my trading toolbox. I basically did not know how to trade under this kinda situation. Gap up, down, filled gap, then up. Well, “Don’t know what to do? then don’t do”.

I guess there should be a lot of actions in stocks trading. I am going to check out blogs in my blogrolls now.

Be a better trader.

Dear diary,

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Manchester United rocks! I know Rooney is getting back to his best form soon. Go Man U go!

I did not have any trade for ‘Trades that got away’ posting today. The only low-risk dummy trade was the YM trade. Looking at the charts of index futures in my watchlist (ER2, ES, NQ, YM), we again had a ‘mid day reversal’ action. Gap down, sold off, BANG! rebounded. I would have been stopped out at break even if I did not exit my trade according my plan.

Not so much to write home. Some profit in pocket and a better trade.

Michelle B wrote another good post at TraderMike’s blog. She wrote something about rules :

Having rules, and some traders have many, is not the same as being disciplined. A disciplined trader follows his rules, while a trader who has rules may not necessarily be disciplined enough to follow them.

How true. A long list of time tested rules are useless if I am not following in.

Be a better trader.