Not sure exactly how to do this trading journal thing. I think it is important I tell this story to other traders, who might understand, and who can tell me if they have experienced something like this, and what they did about it, to fix it.
I'm getting my feet wet with real money.
For the most part I control my losses and am more or less even. So normally there is not a lot to report, except this slow learning process.
I feel that is not so bad for a newbie with real money as I seem to be making lots of mistakes that I didn't think I would. When I was on SIM I could discount these as stupid mistakes, but with real money, they are REAL stupid mistakes! Still, I'm normally able to control the losses and make the loss back in the same day. So, usually there is nothing to tell, except a slow slog towards gaining real market experience.
However, two weeks ago I (my car) was rammed hard by a neighbor on my way back from town. I live in a small mountain resort in Argentina, much of the town is in the forest, and this woman simply took a blind corner sharp way too fast and ran into me in my lane. She was not paying attention to the road, but to her son in the back seat. Fortunately the son was buckled in. Fortunately she hit my car on the right passenger side at a 45 degree angle, and fortunately I was the only one in my car, and on the driver's side. The passenger side was completely crushed inwards.
The impact threw my car to the opposite side of the road and I was thrown around inside the car. I was quite bruised, but otherwise no broken bones.
This was on Saturday. Since there were no broken bones, I felt I could mange the bruise with lots of ice, and that worked ok.
On Monday I had to go to the insurance company then to two workshops to get an estimate. I got home about the time of the New York Open (9:30am EST). I decided I was OK to trade and immediately there was a trade I wanted and so I took a position. A few minutes into the trade I lost the phone and the internet. This is a rare occurrence, only once or twice a year! I called the broker with my cell phone but the line kept dropping. So, I took my laptop into town and found an open wifi. By that time my stop had been hit, which I had moved from my normal 10 tics to 30 ticks. The price had returned to favor my entry before this, but of course, I could not see it.
I had a 3G backup connection in my home office that was not yet operational.
Tuesday I had a minor surgery in my mouth, with some residual pain, not too bad, from the surgery. Wednesday and Thursday were flat.
Friday was non Farm Payroll....I got to the charts just minutes before news and had a bad first trade because I wasn't ready. I turned on software I had written for this type of market and it immediately made up the loss and then with a good profit.
The action was pretty wild, which I like to trade, and I'm good at it. I still had on my auto trading software, it took a good trade, but I saw another on the same chart and entered an order manually. It took and started doing OK. I had forgotten to turn off the autotrader and it then put in a position also. At this point I felt overwhelmed because this was unexpected and I lost my concentration and my composure.
There seemed to be a conflict between the two ATMs and I got confused. The trade ended up without my normal stop. And then it ran hard the other way.
Had both trades executed normally both would have been winners with an ATM trailing stop. I don't yet know what went wrong.
I thought, well, it will probably come back down (was a short), if I'm willing to wait....and it did, to within my normal stop. I was using a third party software to click and place orders on the chart. Never had a problem with it before. So, I was letting the price step down and I followed it back down. The exit orders were on the chart.
But the orders were not at the broker! They were stuck in pending status.
The price went against me again, and fast, without the …