Emotional DOW trading hindrance! Back to the S&P?
Today was a bad day for me to trade.. I didn’t feel right, I felt a bit fed up with the whole trading thing. I see periods when I am doing ok and periods when I am doing lousy and altogether, I am not sure if I am making progress or wildly stabbing in the dark.
Anyway, back to the DOW today. I went long at 12754 and got stopped at 12736 for a loss of -36. Once again, I went long at the top of the pullback….
Then I read the comment from Stephen McCreedy (thanks for the comments in a few of my posts) about trading the S&P rather than DOW… he’s absolutely correct, I never hear anybody trading the DOW but you do hear people trading the S&P.
Anyway, I switch my charts to look at the S&P instead and went long again!! The whole chart is screaming short and I go long… I am not sure what is wrong with me but I got stopped out and took a -3 point hit (1 S&P point is about 10 DOW points).
The last trade when I was getting increasingly frustrated was finally the right thing to do.. stop and reverse of the previous trade, a short at 1406 and I took profit at 1400 for 6 points (or 60 DOW points).
The market is moving lower still (the old problem of not being able to hold my winning trades) but I have made back all the losses of previous and ended up completely flat. I don’t think I should trade for the rest of today as the trading psychology isn’t quite right today with me but at least I’ve not ended up with a loss today!
