October 16 2009 Overlay and Weekly Commentary

I am not marking up my execution chart today.

I was stopped out of an AM trade that I forced myself to take in order to not miss a potential opening run up.

The trade was too soon after the open and against my prep premise of the market trading down closer to 1077.25 visualized on the prep.

I had a second micro breakout entry at 1:00 PM today but could not execute due to technical problems. You can not really speculate on what would have happened because the trade did not happen. Likely break even at worst.

I continue to have poor performance on Fridays. I need to correct this part of my trading.

Weekly Review:

There were not enough executions this week to declare a winning or losing performance.

I had two trades that did not work. One was clearly a mistake which was addressed earlier in the week.

You can not look at a couple trades over the span of a week and expect to gain any insight.

What I can say is that this week lacked intensity in execution. The market was very slow and grinding.

I made a conscience decision to mostly stand aside.

However, my preps and premises were correct all week. This could have been traded.

This is turning into a broken record but I must note that I am not consistently executing my prep.

I can justify reasons for this but the bottom line is that my analysis is almost always correct and I think I have steered a bit off the path that got me to where I am now.

The initial intention of the blog is to trade that prep. After making an excellent run in September I have made some adjustments that have cause a grind in equity.

I will focus on the basics next week. Trade the prep. It is simple and it works well.

I am also going to require more textbook breakout entries.

I need to see tight and clear congestion off significant zones to execute these with the win % I want.

I attempted a few in the past couple weeks that were acceptable entries but they were forced and did not work out.

I know when there is a good trade and when there is not. I am always trying to test this. 90% of the time when I lose it is because I am forcing trades. Trying to make something happen.

I justify this under my "it is better to lose than to miss policy." This is correct but there is a line that gets crossed where I justify an entry I do not like under this policy.

I need to remember that my gut is almost always right and stick with that.

Pure Drive and Ambition:

The effort one has to put into making a trading career work is indescribable.

I have tried to write about it before but can not find the words.

Most will never understand what this is.

I have been having trouble dealing with myself off screen.

Expectations are beyond what many consider possible as I start to see what I am becoming capable of.

There are no breaks. I am living this 24 hours a day.

There are just two modes: relentless sense of urgency fueled by oppressive drive and ambition or constant fear of short term failure and financial ruin. Nothing else.