So let’s cut straight to the chase, did I go IR intentionally today?
Two races out of the 31 were closed IR. One was not intentional and I closed out immediately for a scratch. The other was not so straightforward. I got to the 30 secs reminder, felt the need to close, the 30 seconds then passed in what seemed like a second. Market suspended and taken IR, I then hesitated to close and what seemed like another second (which was in fact another 30 seconds) I then snapped out of the ‘rabbit in headlights syndrome’ and clicked on close.
Depending on your perspective you could say today was a success or a failure. I am inclined to see it as a failure as my previous review outlined one main objective, and that was not to close any trades IR on purpose. 1/31 is still not 0% which is what I need to achieve. Looking at it form a different perspective though, today was also a big improvement. My consistency in decision making was much better and I felt my concentration levels and emotions were under better control. I also felt more of that flow feeling when trading, the price movements made more sense and I did keep my average trades per market down. I often used to have 3 or 4 open trades at a time whereas now I tend to have 1 or 2 open at one time. Also I did make an 83p profit in the end which is not too bad considering I was using £2 stakes throughout and made a few costly errors along the way.
For long periods of the session I did not make any big errors, there were some bad decisions and although rarer and less severe, they are still there and I feel by pinpointing these, and thinking about how to prevent them from reoccurring, is key to eliminating them.
Looking at the P & L there is a -£1.00 figure for the Newb 15:30 that stands out. What happened here was bad trade after bad trade. Again here I feel my bias to back first was evident. The trend was slowly rising and I kept re-entering the market with a back first, to just see the price drift and for me to close a tick higher. I also had about 6 trades open at one time, so my poor trading decision was multiplied. Prevention of this is straightforward and I already did implement this in the races I traded afterwards. I simply need to limit my exposure to 1 or 2 trades at a time and close them before opening up a third. I feel this rule will not only limit my exposure, but force me to focus on closing rather then opening more trades. I have mentioned this before and will highlight this as something to focus on strictly for my next session.
I was happy though that I redded out without any hesitation and moved on quickly. In fact I then started a run, with the next 22 markets collectively producing a £1.45 profit, with no losses. This is the sort of consistency I am trying to achieve and seeing glimpses of it today was quite satisfying.
Another positive observation was in regards to concentration levels. I had a bit of trouble warming up as usual, as you can see from my first few races on the P & L. After this though I felt much more focussed and didn’t really change my trading screen layout much as I have done in the past. I got quite comfortable with it and it seemed to work once I got going. The only change was that I prefer to use the 2 seconds candlestick chart (with 5 minute history) over the 5 seconds one as I found it better to have a faster moving graph there. I also noticed that in the more profitable races a habit which I intend to make part of my routine. It was simply to just load up the market and watch the price movement on the fav for at least 2 min before doing anything else. This gave me time to identify potential support and resistance levels, and also make a few judgements on what I feel will happen in the market.
I am also waiting for a new PC which I ordered about a week ago from Mesh Computers. Feels like it is taking forever to arrive and I suppose it would feel that way for me! Looking forward to receiving it as it will be a much better spec system (quad core with 8gb ram etc) which I can use to record all of my trading sessions. This will help me pinpoint the races where I make loses and see exactly what happened. I think this will help my reviews become much more effective, as at the moment I am basing everything on what I remember and I know no matter how neutral I try to be I am bound to overlook something. Might even put some videos up if I feel there is something worth displaying. Also I will have the option to have a dual widescreen output which I will undoubtedly put to use for trading. They did inform me today that it will be with my next week so not too long now!
Points to consider for next session:
- Multiple signs to justify Entrances & Exits
- Max 2 open trades at any one time
- Min 2 minutes review of market before placing any trades
- Close all trades manually 30 secs before the off
- Warm up by reading this review and watching a couple of vids before trading
- Whenever I feel I am losing focus take a moment to re-focus. Take a break if necessary.
I feel I need to start getting stricter on myself in regards to any re-occurring errors. No doubt once I have the new PC and video evidence (lmao!) I will be capable of being more precise as to what specific bad habits are reducing my profitability, and of course more importantly how to minimise/eliminate them.
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