Swing Trades

There were two channel trades today that were filled at market open. One position hit it’s exit point, OXY:

There are thus 17 open trades in the portfolio now:
Long: AA, CAT, CBOE, DIS, GILD, HD, IR, KR, MSFT, PFE, RIO, SLB, STZ, TPR(2), WYNN.
Short: SKT.

Combined, they show a return of +3.43R

Day Trades

There was no day trade update yesterday because I broke a rule and kept positions on overnight. Here’s how the morning went:

If I had entered my stop losses in the market, they would have been hit during a plunge down later in the day. The wisest move would have been to exit when I walked away from the screen. I was very fortunate that today, the market eventually moved back up and enabled me to bank, not just my daily +1R for today, but for yesterday as well. It was not pretty, and I’m sure part of the reason I held on was because it is a paper trading account.

Reflections

If the point of paper trading is to practice good behavior, then I did not do that yesterday. It is the process of trading that I need to make my focus, not the dollar results. Letting day trades or swing trades become position trades is a common fault that will sink traders. This did not become a trade to sink the account, but it did demonstrate how attached I still am to the results rather than the process. The relatively new +1R target goal for the day may need to be dropped for a return to focusing on the process of trading and generating whatever return happens to come my way.