I am very pissed at myself for my poor execution today. Click in the picture to fully understand why.
My execution today was horrible. Not because I made bad trades; because I made a horrible decision overnight and let it fester all day.
The Setup
Last night, I ditched my stops on my short /ES and /NQ trades. Normally, I don’t ever trade futures without stops. I’ve just been getting frustrated with the overnight action that appears to gun down stops.
Lets just say that I won’t do that again. I may loosen them up, or set them with triggers and other monkey business, but mark my words. I won’t go to sleep without a stop ever again.
The Morning
So I woke up this morning, got ready for work and headed down to my trading setup. What I saw really pissed me off. The /ES futures had rocketed up all the way to the 765 level. At this point, I’m now upside down about 16 /ES points, for no good reason. Had I not moved my stops, I’d have realized a 6 point /ES loss, then gotten back in at 765 short.
I walked out of the house telling my wife that I’d done something stupid, and rather than having to ride it back down – I should have been locking in profits.
During the day
Well, here you go:
- Short @ 764 ~ 7:30am
- Cover / Go Long @ 759 ~ 9:30am
- Sell / Go Short @ 770 ~ 12:30am
- Stay short w/ Stop at 758
- Total points: 5+11+12 (locked in profit) = 28 /ES points…
Rather than locking that in, I had a little emotional / mental whining session and stayed short all day. Net, I’m still down a a few /ES points.
How to play it going forward
While it is painful to realize a nasty loss, sometimes that is what is required. I still feel strongly that we are going down from here. I still remain short this evening. My stops are in place, and they are ready to get me out should the goofy after hours market makers decide to run the tape. I’ll get back in tomorrow.
Going forward, as soon as the conditions change I’m going to roll the position. Today, I held on because I “didn’t want to recognize the loss.” That is completely foolish. Lets just take the 28 Points that I would have banked today, subtract my losses of 16 points and I’d have walked out with a net gain of 12. Go figure.
Granted, not every day will be a big moving day like this. As soon as my indicators rolled over to get long, I should have done it.
