Couldn't Pull It Together

Gross: +$90.53
Net: -$47.53
Loss From Top: 226.66
Trades: 64
Shares Traded: 124800

Stocks Traded Today (net profit/loss):
Walmart (WMT): +$218.82
Home Depot (HD): +$63.87
Corning (GLW): +$36.55
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): -$15.32
Citigroup (C): -$38.17
Bell South (BLS): -$150.65
Pfizer (PFE): -$162.63

Today I tried to stick to the game plan by keeping my share size consistent - and I did stick to it, but it was the other parts of the game plan the fell apart and resulted in a negative day for me.

I've got to stop trading stupid stocks that hardly move like Bell South (BLS) and Pfizer (PFE). I am constantly getting tempted by what I see on the Level 2 on these stocks and I end up trading them. I'm temporarily putting these two stocks on my "Do Not Trade" list - at least until they start trending and or when their intraday ranges pick up.

The thing that killed me today was Bell South (BLS). All day I was watching and waiting for the $35 level break. I was caught a couple of times on false breaks, and it slowly chipped away on my net.

I've also got to stay away from Pfizer (PFE) for the next little while. The Level 2 on this stock is soo deceiving and it's been fairly tricky to trade lately. Today on PFE I put on some good trades on it, but it was usually followed up by an even worse trade on it.

Revenge trading also got the best of me today. After a good start to the morning, my profits slowly decayed into negative territory, I started trading angrily by trading 5000 or 6000 shares without thinking things through.

I hate bringing this up time and time again, but the market chop also got the best of me. I know I keep using this excuse whenever I have a bad day, so this is what I intend to do: instead of blaming market "choppiness", I think I should focus on when I should trade and when not to trade. If I keep blaming market "chop", I will never be able to identify the problem I am having.

I have to keep changing things up to try to get consistent. I can understand having a bad day or two, but if I keep having good days followed by mediocre days followed by bad days then back to good days, it means I am doing something wrong. And the thing I keep doing wrong is that I keep breaking away from my trading plan.

So I propose the following: anytime I put on two bad trades in a row, I will force myself to read my trading strategy. By following this exercise, I hope to enforce the rules I have setup for myself.

4 more days to go...