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,

[photopress:picsrv.manutd.com.jpg,full,pp_image]

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.

Dear diary,

It was not a strong day. I made a trade and scratched it 2 hours later as It failed to form the setup I was looking for. I categorized this entry as implusive. Yup, it was a valid dummy setup, however, in my trading plan, it would only got Long above a UP candle. Well, I broke the rule, I was anxious to trade. Darn.
I was lucky to realiase my own mistake and scratched the trade when it closed below 8-MA.

Few months ago, when I just started active daytrading, I read some great blogs like ugly, tradermike, tale of tape , Maoxian etc who are doing dummy trading. I read some good comments on dummy trading. These two months, well, I would say it might not as good as early of the year for dummy traders. So, now I am reading some negative comments about dummy trading now. Some fellows left some comments at uglychart.com.

Dummy trading is not a holy grail. Even the cat outside my house knows that. You wanna trade a system? then follow the system. Follow the system? that means follow it through good days and bad ones. Manage your risk, that’s it. Dummy entry is meant for trader who are dumb enough like me to join a trend. That’s all.

Ok, enough, just some random thoughts after reading some BS from people who didn’t even start trading dummy setup and putting in some silly comments. When come to trading, people always like to think too high of themselves. Be humble and shut up, cut the BS.

If you are too tense, go Wallstrip.com. Watch the video!

Let’s trade better tomorrow.

Dear diary,

So bulls just don’t want to give up. I can’t remember when did I start hearing or reading about ‘We are overbought‘, ‘We are deeply overbought‘. Right now, the market proves again my own philosophy , ‘High will get higher, cheap will get cheaper‘. So, next week we are going to see profit taking, so next week we are going to push the index further, or so now we are really super overbought…argh…WHO CARES? I don’t care.
There was no trade that got away today. The only low risk dummy setup was NQ trade which I managed to got in with 2.09-R gain. I need to be confident with every trade I made. My own judgement is the best thing I can rely on when I am trading.

It is Saturday again. I am going to catch a movie later, and maybe visit the latest and biggest mall in Singapore Vivo city. I will forget everything about trading today. Time to relax.

Dear diary,
After getting stopped out in YM trade, I stopped trading for the day since it was around lunch time. I continued drafting my business plan.

Market ran way without me in the afternoon. I have just posted charts in “Trades that Got away“. You know , there were 5 of them, and I didn’t get any of them! oh well. What do I learn from this? There is no problem with dummy trading, one should not complain about a trading style, instead, the problem is with THE trader himself. Ok, market condition might affect my performance, but that’s not the main cause.

My recent trading performance stalled, and it is longer than I expected. It is a psychological challenge rather than financial damage. I should pat on my back for controlling my losses to minimum. Instead of sinking into deep thinking all the days, I am spending my time to really write down my trading business plan in details. Yup, in great details. I know, as long as I can get through this bad period, I will be stronger when good days come.

I just need to continue my dummy trading, strictly follow the rules and setup that I have written down. The rest, I will leave it to market.

Alrite, it is time for me to pop in multi-vitamins again.