July Review

July's been a good month. I think I nearly doubled my P&L from June, which was already a career best month. Through out the first half I was doing really well, I would make two or three good trades and they all turn out to be really good winners. There's definitely a certain mental block I think and once you break through it's easier to get back to that level. That's pretty much what I try to do early July and to ride out my streak as long as possible. I knew it was unrealistic b/c my winning percentage would be in the 70 or 80's. At first it really help me build confidence and taking slightly bigger size but it got to a point where I was scared that the streak would end. Especially sometimes that I double down and add to losers and get away with it. When I talk to Lawrence that I was afraid the streak it going to end he pretty much flat out said "oh yeah, it will." I didn't like that at first; I felt at first almost as he's putting a curse on me. Then I starting to think that's pretty much how trading is... you'll be hot and you'll be cold, you just gotta adjust accordingly.

July kind of cooled down though towards the end. Volume started sucking so I didn't get to finish July as strong as I wanted. Some of it might have to do w/ this stupid temporary Reg SHO the SEC put in place, which at first it was going to end on July 29th I believe but now it's been extended to mid August. Our office has been very good w/ the new change, we had a pool of borrowed stocks in the 19 companies that were included in the list and it would replenish automatically. Really except for a few occasions I think we would have always have the shares to short. I don't really trade the individual stocks as much so it affected me less. The ETF's that track these stocks that I trade might have been distorted price wise like XLF, SKF, KRE, and KBE, but really it doesn't matter to me... I just trade whichever direction the trend it going. It wasn't like nobody out there could short the financials, it's just that you couldn't naked short (shorting w/out first locating the shares to borrow), which is illegal anyway. But who cares, there are people out there doing illegal things on the street everyday anyway.

I've also put some focus into trying out new tools w/ technology for new trades and it's worked on a few occasions. That probably added a thousand dollars to my P&L for the month, plus there are other tools that help me stay in the trade longer or take bigger size although it's harder to quantify how much more money I made.

I've been slacking off on the reading... not good. I need to finish the Mark Douglas book so I can move on to something else.

So, here's to a good July and wish for a crazy August. Fed meeting next Wednesday, we'll have to see what they do. I hope they either raise or cut rate... get some good action going. Enough of this leaving the rate unchanged business.