Impatience Rears Its Ugly Head

A quick +2pt gain just at the market open quickly turned southwards when I decided to get back in, to get "more" for the night. It turned out to be the wrong decision as I quickly lost the 2pts in two quick succession trades.

Instead of my usual calm & collected self, I was agitated that I had gained, and lost the 2pts so quickly. And before I knew it, I was literally shooting off the hip, with my doubly quick trade executions. At one point, I found myself left with an open position, purely because the SHORT that I took, with a unrealised profit of 1.5pts, quickly dissipated to just 0.50pts when PRICE started going against me.

And in wanting to close it out with at least a small gain, the market took my exit trade, but also hit my STOP Buy Limit. In other words, I was just barely out of my SHORT for less than a minute, when a new LONG trade was quickly shoved into my hands (all because I couldn't cancel the STOP Buy Limit in time)!

Looking back at this particular trade, I realised that I should not have done anything "extra" and just let the STOP get hit. PRICE was just too closed to my STOP limit, to execute an exit trade. And as the saying goes..."they were hunting for my STOPs". Indeed, after hitting my STOP and putting me in a LONG position, PRICE reversed down almost immediately and I was stopped out by -1.5pts. Aaaaargh!!

That got me even more riled up but I thank God that in it all, He provided some form of relief, because in total, before my last trade, I was down by almost -5pts! My last trade (a LONG) actually threatened to be another loser as after getting in, the YM pushed lower, but the ES held on...barely. Seeing that the market was in grossly oversold territory, I decided to move my usual STOPs of 0.75 to 1.00pts, away to around 1.25pts. It worked but the PRICE movements back up, was totally labourious.

It was a countertrend trade and I was pretty mindful not to "overstay" the trade. My entry was at 1176.75 and my target exit was 1180.75. The 2 steps up, and 2 steps back (a staircase kind of movement) in PRICE caused quite a bit of anxiety in me and when the volatility hit at 1180.25, I told myself it was enough and I got out at 1179.50. PRICE did come down to 1178.50 thereafter but it also went back up again, to hit 1180.50. However, that was the end of the countertrend move and it started going downhill after that. By then, I had already called it a night.

Opening my charts this morning, I found that PRICE actually went lower, to hit 1173.50!! But of course, that proved to be the day's low and the ES eventually closed at 1180.00

Last night's session proved to be another important reminder to me...Impatience can be a nasty bedfellow and if I am not careful, it can & will lead me down the slippery slope of disaster! I really, really have to keep a tight rein on it.

For the record, my loss for the night turned out to be only -2pts.