Tuesday: +20.25 net Mixed Emotions

Base System: 22W-4L=26T= 84.6%
Summer Camp System: Winner, Heat 1.5 points
New System: 15W-4L=19T= 78.9%

Good news/bad news. Bad first... I traded one bad series against the 8:54 CST downtrend. Before it was over I had scaled in 15-20 contracts and had missed my exit 3 times. I eventually got out with a small gain. I really have some mental issues apparently. I need to kill this demon called "the need to be right".

Good news: Another great day with a net total of 20.25 points. I am subtracting 6 points due to that bad series against the trend. The new system is working well. It is not the holy grail and often it takes a lot of nerve to take the trade. It is like stepping in front of a moving train, only sometimes the train reverses on a dime.

My performance has really been consistent lately.
So what is the cause?

1. I am improving with my systems and my reads of the market.
2. The market is more volatile.
3. A bit of both.

I am going to say #3 is the answer and ask how has your trading been lately?

Trading Demons to be killed
1. The need to be right (aka having emotional pain from a loss)
2. Missing the runners

I have mixed emotions on the second one. There are many trades where I can barely scrape out 1 point. Remember 1 point takes 6-7 ticks, not 4. Each day there are moves that go 4x that amount that I get out of early. I ran some numbers a week ago and it actually showed taking 1 point all day was BETTER than staying in the few longer moves. This was mainly because many of those 1 point opportunities became scratch or losing trades if I waited around. If you find yourself correct in the entries but not taking profits, maybe you need to stop shooting for the moon and see how it goes.

I think it is only human nature to think every trade is going to bring riches. The market is nothing but fear and greed at every moment. Fear rides my left shoulder and greed on the right doing battle in every trade. My favorite trades lately are where I place a stop and a target and go do something else.

Chart of the day shows the new signal in all it's glory and also the bad trading area.