S&P Trouble?

To the left is a chart of the daily S&P 500 futures contract. Notice the green carrot, which indicates a long position entered this morning. You can sure bet I felt like a "real genius" as the Dow was down 120 points, and I was long! I am supposed to know what I am doing!

Why in the world would I be long, when I have constantly talked about the overall likelihood of a down market here into the fall? The answer is simple. I trade short term in many markets as well as long term. I was short the day before, and made a nice profit. However, this short term pattern, has been historically bullish, itleast for a few days.

As a short term trader in this market, I need to follow what my patterns and trading systems tell me. Often, this will be trading against the overall trend in the market. This is where the discipline comes in. I have no idea whether this trade will wind up as a profit or a loss. I will follow my trade rules, with exit points, and stop loss protection. The rules will determine my fate in this trade.

I want to post both good and bad trades in this forum. Some people represent, that it is just as easy as clicking the mouse, and the money just rolls in. This is absolutely not true. Even in the best of times, some losses will occur. We will follow this trade in here live until it's conclusion.

I hope to gain credibility with those of you that visit here by doing this. It is very easy for me to just tell you about all my wins, as the majority of my trades are wins. By going through trades like this, that do not look too good right from the get go, I hopefully can give everyone a good feel, for what really happens in trading. Often trades go against you initially, and this is why we use stop loss orders. These protect us, when things do not go as expected.