My Double Up

Trading's been going... well, surprisingly well actually. My confidence was completely shot to hell after February. I spent a good part of this month just dialing my shares back, being more selective and just slowing build my confidence back up. I've stopped playing EWZ and SPY as much, that probably helps a lot, too. I've been trading the REITs and agriculture stocks a lot like POT, AGU, MON, MOS, IPI. The thicker ones at least, with lots of liquidity. I just don't like the thinner ones like CF and BG. Much harder to judge my outs and having a reliable read, at least for me. My coach noticed that, too. We've been doing this peer evaluation feedback thing and funny that he had me this week. He said that he's been impressed with the past three weeks and obviously it's good to hear your boss impressed your performance.

Today just made it a little bit sweeter. I practically doubled my month in just one day. And it's not that I've been trading really shitty and not making any money lately. You know I don't like to talk about actual dollar values so let's just leave it at that. Funny thing is, I could've done better still. I know I'm just being hard on myself as usual and not giving myself enough credit. Just a few minor execution improvement like if I continue to put out additional orders or manage my position better could sweeten this situation even further. I'll have to keep that in mind the next time this situation happens. I have to focus on not getting cocky or complacent or even thinking that I don't deserve this money and let my discipline slip. Three more trading days left in March. Things could get much better still.

This rally we've had lately... even I'm starting to be a believer but technically we're still in a lower low down trend. Monday could be very interesting and I want to say that things are shaping up to be exactly how I imagined. Something's coming in April. I don't want to stick my neck out too far just yet, but once I see indications then I'll disclose and probably put on a large position.

I've been doing a lot of talking lately, both to senior traders and rookies. I took David out to lunch and we didn't get too deep but it was still beneficial. David's one of the brothers of our CEO so it was a pretty cool experience. I'm talking to another top trader soon and I'd like to keep it going. It's kind of like in sales and I just get them to refer me to somebody else and I think eventually I'll get to even some of the guys that I feel are unapproachable. I'll put my conversations in separate posts b/c I feel my posts can be a little too long sometimes =)

Brett Steenbarger is coming to our office this Saturday. Looking forward to it and getting lots of useful stuff from him. He has a lot of insight into the psychology of trading and set of indicators he looks at. I'm going to have to miss the crawfish boil for Texas Exes Young Alumni as well as the one for Texas Blazers. Oh well, too bad. Job is more important.