Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Wednesday Notes - Doing The Dance

8:45pm It's been a while -- about seven years -- since I last donned the headset during the trading day to essentially assume the role of air traffic controller for traders, while continuing to trade myself. So you can probably imagine that this week has been a bit of an adjustment for me in assuming the role of player-coach, especially as my first priority was to make sure the Jellies were comfortable in their new surroundings. My personal comfort was secondary.

Yet today -- on day three -- was the day that everything came together for me personally as I was in as good a trading rhythm as I've been in a long time, and ended the day feeling like a huge multi-month burden had finally been lifted. Said another way, I felt I shook the 200 pound monkey off my back as I danced cheek-to-cheek with the market similar to most of '08 and early '09.

From last night's close and textbook teeing up of the likely overnight and morning trade off Tuesday's late-day supports, to the early recognition of extreme weakness after the initial post-U.S. open test (did you catch that VIX spike?), to shorting the first downdraft retracement, to taking the afternoon break of consolidation north ... the day-long dance never stopped.

So like jumping into a new pool, the water has taken some getting used to. Yet now, the water has warmed to a point where it frankly feels more uncomfortable being outside of the tank than inside.

It feels natural.

It feels as it's supposed to be.

And perhaps for the first time since May, I've felt a release and an inner voice that's saying, "This is where you're supposed to be. You can finally relax now and go back to doing the dance. Just don't make it a solo."