Tough lessons

Well,

It has been a while since I posted.  I have been working on finishing up a project and then I did not do much trading during the week of Christmas and New Year.  When I did trade, I had a several good days and two bad days.

It is amazing what the bad days can do to your psychology and attitude...if you let it.  I have been successful in my trading over the last month primarily because I have been doing my homework, which is to look at the market history from a large perspective and understand where price is relative to the whole auction process.

When I do my homework, it means that I spend time at night reviewing the day and then in the morning to see what happened overnight and to finalize my plan for the day.  When I do this, I have been quite successful.

The two bad days that I have had recently are when I tried to trade just by showing up in the morning and look for trade set ups and I have tried to do some trades that were just not mine.  I tried to squeeze a little out of the market and I got slapped.  However, I have learned that if I plan on trading without doing the work, then I will trade only in simulation mode.  It will be the price that I pay for not doing the work necessary to trade with my money.  I also made some stupid decisions to move my stops, expecting to be able to buy or sell into a trade that went against me to beat the market.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Some days, the best trade is the one that you do not make.  I will say it over and over: "Homework and discipline are the keys to success in trading".  Those that don't do the work or have the discipline give their money to the ones that do.  'Nuff said!