I have an ideal way I like to enter for scalps, flicks against me, but after 50 - 100 or more trade per day its not practical to review the trades. And its not like every trade I'm entering or exiting with the same 'pattern'. To review all entries will just have me chasing ideas that don't lead to more profit. In fact I know that I just about always get out too soon. So I after reviewing of trades the logical thing would be to try and hold for longer. Milk them a bit more. But of course thats always the Scalpers problem, you always leave a fair bit on the table if not what you end up doing is becoming a longer term intraday trader. And then I become conflicted. So after review I just accept that. Trying to change it results in less profit.
But what I can review is patterns of my behavior. Just like patterns repeat in the market so I have discovered I repeat patterns. That's why I follow my equity curve during trading. Yesterday classic example. All morning I couldn't get a runner, every win was around 1R. Now this is my second day trading after nearly 4 weeks off so I'm a little rusty and a little keen to pay back all the Beer $'s I spent. After 20 trades of going nowhere the frustration got the better of me and the next 9 trades were reactive rather than my normal entry style of taking opposite positions to DOM movements. Result? 8 of them losers! So after a quick break and cool down (and grumble at the dog) I got my stuff back together and got the equity curve positive.
By then it was lunch break on the HSI. During the break news from China about tightening was pushing all the other Asian markets down so the plan was to play short from the arvo open. Which was working out nicely as the equity keep going up. Until I got onto what I though was going to be a nice runner to make the days effort worth while. BUT In moving a limit order I fat fingered it!! and got long on the biggest sweep of the day that I was an instant before perfectly positioned for!! Grrrrr! FRUSTRATION. End result? see for yourself.
A wasted day. So like I said I'm a bit rusty and a bit pushed to start swinging it again. Today's efforts will be to concentrate on the trade ideas and getting the right entries while keeping a very close eye out for building frustration.
