This month has been about improving my exits. Protecting profits and trying to become a better trader. I am doing very well up over $7,000 this week and over $22,000 for the month.
With this success I try to improve my losses by making them smaller and letting my winners run. That is why today I was so frustrated because I didn’t protect my profits today at open when I had problems with my charting and price action. I was trading blind. I am not sure if it was my internet or Equityfeed. Whatever it was made me miss the crucial minutes to exit with profits on $NERV and $PSTG.
It really messed up my clarity in trading today and I did not really have any trades that won so I left my desk around 1pm. I am definitely better at cutting my losses with stops. I felt today was off with trading with the volume and price action.
I was anticipating a bigger run up on $ZAGG today. I thought it was going to break out once it broke 5.00 so I added at 5.02. It went up to 5.04 and then started to drop back down. I did not want it to go back down to 4.80 on me so I sold my full position of the stock with 2 cent off.
I realized that I love Fridays because I usually find the shorts close out all their positions before lunch and it is very easy to make a profit on reversals. With the holiday weekend I feel many people took today off and the shorts closed out yesterday with the end of the day runs on stocks. I will note this for the next holiday weekend.
I felt everything was off for me today and frustrated from the get go in the beginning. I was out at the hardware store at close moving my stop limits up as the price climbed on $NERV. If I had read that the price target had been upgraded to $17 I probably would have held it to Tuesday. I think it will spike on Tuesday with the press over the weekend.
My longs over the weekend are INSY and LE. With LE at close to 52 week lows there is still value for investors. I will watch at open and any articles over the weekend.
INSY still had more growing in my opinion with the phase 1/2 approval by FDA. My estimated target would be up close to 18. The strong finish of today leads me to believe it will climb on open like it did today as well.
As always my goal when I have a red day and losses is to figure out what went wrong. Today was easy. My rule when I hold overnight is to sell at open, but when I can’t see the action then make sure a limit order is in to protect myself.
When mentally my day is off, recognize it and go to enjoy life instead of make poor trades. I’ll be much happier playing the afternoon away with my daughter instead of losing my profits.
I hope you all have a safe enjoyable holiday weekend. Spend time with friends and family and so time to study. The best way to make yourself profitable is to learn from books, DVDs, analyzing trades. When you journal your trades you can see what your weaknesses are and how to improve them. It is always hard to accept a loss. The best thing is to accept it quickly and move forward with improving your actions.
As always I hope this post has helped you to learn and see even when you are profitable losses do happen. It is minimizing those losses to keep your profits.
Another FYI that Trade Ideas who I use when my list doesn’t produce winning trades is having their final days of lifetime licensing of their premium package and AI. It will soon be monthly charges for everything June 1st. The have a free trading room that will be up a Tuesday if you want to check it out.
This blog is for information purposes I am not a registered securities broker-dealer or an investment advisor. The information here is not intended as securities brokerage, investment or as an offer or solicitation of an offer to sell or buy, or as an endorsement, recommendation or sponsorship of any company, security or fund.
Thank you for sharing Jane! This is very helpful.
Thanks for the help Jane airplane