Trader X

Last week as a great week... not because I made tons of money (I didn't), and not because I followed my plan (didn't do that either!) but because I am becoming aware of when I'm not following my plan and I am learning how to fix it. From my earlier post you can see that it started great but progressed to worse as the week went by. I am learning to remove myself from the situation and look at things from a 3rd persons objective view... It's like "Hey! He didn't follow his rules!"

I've also been able to figure out the circumstances when I start shooting from the hip. It's when the market starts moving and I feel like I am being left behind or when I start to anticipate the beginnings of a move before it happens. The anticipation was a killer on one trade last week. I anticipated a long signal so I went long... market started down. I rationalized that I should add to the position because I knew it was going to go up. So I did! How stupid. What I should have done was to exit as soon as the signal wasn't generated. Done, over, out! The other killer was when the market has formed a signal but the bar hasn't closed yet... and I just can't wait to get in before it leaves me behind. So I jump early only to have the bar then fail to generate the signal. Same thing... should have gotten out.

Luckily for me Van Tharp has just the answer for me... in his program he has some solutions to this problem. I am working on my discipline everyday and it has really helped. I am usually very good for the first 2-3 trades before things fall apart. If things are going well I get cocky.. if they are going poorly then I get anxious and want revenge! The answer is to just stop at the first sign of breaking rules. Before I am allowed to trade again I need to re-read my rules and plan and then proceed with caution!

Trader X
PS. There are some other Van Tharp things but you will have to buy the seminar to find those out!