Monday, July 30, 2007

Commitment

You get paid to trade the market not to watch the market

I won't earn a dime, saying this is a long signal and I should go long as long as I don't do it

I never saw myself as being trigger shy, but I sure had hours when I was sitting in front of the computer, watching the charts and doing nothing, even if I thought: This is a long, that is a short...shit why did I not take it

Friday I lost a nice green day in a nasty FTSE selloff, when my Stop triggered at the bottom. (I had decided to leave a trade open, when I left for 1h and had set a disaster stop, which -as usual- I did not expect to get hit) 

From +500 to -2500. I traded 1500 back the same day by commiting myself to take every FTSE signal I saw and even if that stop at the bottom hurt, in the evening I was feeling quite good, being able to trade 50% of that loss back. After the close and over the weekend I tried to analyze what I made right and it really was just taking every signal and knowing the longer swings. Still there remained that lingering doubt, will I be able to continue trading with this kind of commitment.

Monday 2:30pm CEST (8:30am EST) and I managed to trade not every FTSE swing but enough to make back another 1000 bringing the account above Fridays open.

A few weeks back I told someone I'm usually able to tradeback a loss within a day. And on these days I'm usually very focused, very aware of the swings. I'm usually not taking greater risks, but often I'm taking more trades. I'm not sitting in front of the computer just watching the market, but taking the signals I see and trading them as good as possible.

Chris, continue doing what you do right!