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Wednesday, September 15, 2010

TOUGH INTERVIEW


Sometimes it is very difficult to get up and go to work. If I were being interviewed today I would tell the reporter to go jump in a lake. I have made so many mistakes this week already that I have already left over 50k on the table that I should have had. It is in reality probably closer to 100k, I don't even want to know the real total. I was so mad at myself yesterday the last thing in the world I was ever going to do was post something in here. I have to admit that a couple of decisions not to take trades completely debilitated me. I don't remember the last time this happened, but it has been many years. For me my biggest pain is not losing on a trade, it is seeing a big one I did not do for some stupid reason sail away from me.

It was all I could do not to go jump in a lake. Fortunately for me my pond on my property tends to dry up at this time of the year, so it stopped me from jumping in it. The above trade is an example of one I would have done and was going to do until, THE EVENT happened. Once it happened it just exited everything I was in and went flat. I was just too emotional to even deal with any trades at the time. I should not have done that because one of the trades I exited has gone on to be a big winner. I have to admit to still not having a clear head, so I don't know how much trading I am going to do this week.

I really don't have any advice as to how to handle this, it is part of this business, and there is no magic answer other than to deal with it. This one will stick with me, and I am going to make some changes as a result of this colossal blunder on my part. Maybe that is the good that will come out of this. As to the trade above in the Yen, this was a tough one. I noticed yesterday that we were breaking out to new highs after having gone sideways for a few days, and thought if it failed it could be a nice short. The momentum oscillators were really kind of just going sideways, although it could be argued that they were under their trend lines and as a result sells could have been done. However, you can see that has been the case for the last month and nothing has happened. What did make this a little different was that we made a new high last night, then broke the prior bars low making it an outside bar. This could have been the justification for doing the trade. This was driven by a news event, but the pattern was there.

Had the oscillator been a little more definitively down I would have done this one, but in reality I was so tuned out to doing any trades due to THE EVENT, that I could have cared less if the markets ever reopened again. I do not for one second represent my reaction to my blunders being the correct action, it is just the action I took. You have to have a clear head to trade, and if you don't you should push away from the desk and that is what I did and am probably going to do today also. I may be slacking on the blog the next few days, I am not sure. I have a very poor attitude right at the moment and it might be best for me to go do something else for a few days.

Good trading to everyone

2 comments:

Konrad Sherinian said...

Chris - the Yen was a tough one. In your defense, it had risen to knew highs the previous day (I actually had a short stop order in, until it did that). I also missed out on Gold the prior day...and actually would have gone short on a stop if it price dropped under 1242, so don't feel too bad...

Chris Johnston said...

Thanks for the comments. The trade I blew that haunts me is the DX short. The Yen was a tough one, but it was a specialist trap that broke a QTL. Trades against trends that strong are tough, but false breaks and reversals are usually the exception. Gold now has a Specialist trap also so we will see what happens here. If it does not fly out of here right now I think it comes down.