Friday, November 27, 2009

Friday Notes - Mad as Hell and ....

Yesterday's post says it all.

For far too long this year, I've gone at trading half-heartedly. Sure the Jellie efforts diluted my trading focus at times as I focused on other people's P&Ls -- even as I continued to trade to effectively teach -- but as they say, "that was then".

Yes, the industry records, requests for interviews, and addition of substantial sums to my trading capital in recent years turned me into a half-hearted complacent wuss at times, and a full-fledged wuss at others. Too often, I stopped getting up early when there was opportunity, as well as making the other sacrifices that are necessary if one is truly going to excel in this business.

So yesterday began my road back as I put aside early pre-turkey plans to effectively trade the Dubai barf. Then, I chose to further alter plans last night by getting to bed early, passing on the late football game, and sleeping in my office to make sure I was prepared for both the 3am Europe open and 9:30am U.S. normal session open, both of which provided once-a-year type of setups after the excessive and thinly traded 40 point sell-a-thon.

And what an open it was as I nailed the U.S. day session by catching the bottom and top of each early oscillation (yes, that's an actual TT system-generated chart of my executions as we use in the tank ... triangle pointing right opens the sequence, triangle pointing left closes the sequence, and dashes are interim adds or scales ... most of the lower dashes are additional buys).

For as I screamed in the tank at the time, price was rising as TICK was FALLING, which set the stage for price spikes once TICK stabilized and turned:

09:31:04 {DonM} L 7850 probe
09:32:39 {DonM} added
09:32:42 {DonM} let's go
09:32:55 {DonM} neg tick price +++++++++++
09:32:56 {DonM} !!!!!!!!!!!
09:33:53 {DonM} come on tick
09:33:55 {DonM} turn
09:34:03 {DonM} price may explode if it does
09:34:56 {DonM} +4
09:34:58 {DonM} holding
09:36:08 {DonM} price still ok
09:36:13 {DonM} despite the putrid tick
09:36:15 {DonM} out most
09:36:19 {DonM} holding some
09:36:41 {DonM} get your butt up
09:36:53 {DonM} 1090 not out of ?
09:37:14 {DonM} patient
09:38:19 {DonM} huge divergence
09:38:21 {DonM} price vs tick
09:38:26 {DonM} price a horse
09:38:27 {DonM} DO NOT SHORT
09:38:37 {DonM} if tick turns
09:39:59 {DonM} SQUEEZE POSSIBLE ON ANY STABLIZATION IN TICK
09:40:38 {DonM} TICK TURNING
09:40:44 {DonM} !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
09:42:11 {DonM} +8
09:43:22 {DonM} whew
09:43:23 {DonM} flat for now
09:43:28 {DonM} can run farther
09:43:40 {DonM} took the tick to 0
09:43:45 {DonM} still could go +

Oh there were still a few things I could have done better that will keep me ticked off, including being a bit more alert at 3am and improving the sizing on some of the sequences, but suffice it to say that for the first time in a long time, I'm dead serious about my P&L.

Said another way, I'm mad as hell at my complacency and I'm simply not going to take it anymore. And I'm talking slam the hammer on the thumb, trader transaction tax, Patriots lose a perfect season on a last minute Super Bowl Hail Mary Super Glue Helmet Catch type of mad.

Look out market.