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Thought it'd be wise to make a journal as I've been going through a rough patch lately. We'll see if this helps.
For the most part, I'm a tapereader but I augment that with other stuff too. I guess that makes me discretionary. However, I tend to do poorly when I disregard the tape... and I've been doing that a lot lately. I am an extremely emotional trader so forgive me in advance for any profanity. I loathe to lose.
Anyway, hopefully I can start this up tomorrow. I trade a bit of everything, some days stocks, some days futures, forex... recently, I've just been in stocks and futures. Not really sure how to make a journal so I'll just pretend I'm talking to myself and go from there...
Okay, so a little bit about me before the day starts.
I traded prop for a bit but the environment in the firm I traded was really restrictive. I've always kind of swam against the current, so there wasn't a lot of leeway for someone who traded 'differently'. I found, however, when I went on my own, that I did better because I was free to use my imagination. Prop was an equities only gig and we weren't allowed to use charts so I learned to trade using level 2 and the tape. So basically that's my style. All the guys in my firm were tapereaders and they were all scalpers which I can do also... but building into a position and whacking the market for a decent trade is more my preference and much more challenging. However, I'm down pretty bad this month so perhaps scalping my way into some confidence is a better plan.
I only generally watch ONE tape throughout the day, the SPY's, and I trade off of that. If I'm trading another stock, depending on what kind of play it is, I will watch a different tape. But for the most part, I am watching for plays on the SPYS and then interpreting what I see and translating that into plays elsewhere. I use charts only for one thing and from what I read on various forums, it is not the reason that people normally use charts. Suffice it to say, I won't be sharing.
Trying to figure out how to get my chart to show trade markers so that I don't clutter up the thread with my thoughts. For what it's worth, I'm short at 2732.50. And waiting to see what happens.
