Hate To Say I Warned Myself So...

Gross: +$293.84
Net: +$116.27
Loss From Top: $234.34
Trades: 111
Shares Traded: 151800

Stocks Traded Today (net profit/loss):
Hewlett Packard (HPQ): +$426.84
Corning (GLW): +$66.55
Walmart (WMT): +$11.59
General Electric (GE): +$8.37
Citigroup (C): -$34.08
Home Depot (HD): -$69.80
Motorola (MOT): -$90.66
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): -$202.55

If I only took my own (as well as some of you reader's) advice and gone home after lunch. But, I insisted on sticking around for the FOMC meeting minutes.

This morning I took on more risk than usual (which we all know I'm trying to work on) and I know I had big swings in my profits, but by lunch I was up a little over $300.

I traded lightly before the FOMC meeting minutes were released and and when they did come out, I managed to lose some money.

Then the plane crashed into an apartment building on East 72nd Street in Manhattan, which caused havoc with our trading system.

Somehow in the chaos, I lost a lot of money on AMD. Our system lagged so much and things would freeze and execution slowed to a crawl. I got in a couple of times on AMD at what I thought were the correct prices, but instead they were delayed quotes. I went long when AMD was tanking hard on one of the trades...good thing I only used 1000 shares.

And there were a couple of other trades on AMD during that volatile period in which I thought were good, but ended up being losers because what I was seeing was not really there.

Looks like the news reports that Yankee pitcher (and one-time Blue Jay) Corey Lidle was in the plane crash. His passport was found on the ground near the crash and the plane was registered to him. Wow - how unfortunate...

At our office we have an audio news feed and we did get the news about the plane crash maybe about 1 or 2 minutes before it was broadcast on CNBC. I should have been able to make some money at that point (markets were just beginning to fall when we heard the news), but I didn't.

But because of the multiple problems with the system, I made some profits, I lost some profits, but in the end, I lost more than I gained.

And I knew something like this was going to happen. I was already starting to "feel" like I didn't want to be there immediately after lunch, but somehow I decided to stay.

There were some good comments in yesterday's post and a lot of good suggestions. Richard (from, you know where - Move The Markets) pointed out that having monetary rules (like if I make $700 before lunch...etc) is probably not a good thing - and I totally agree with him. This will probably lead to the kind of days when I aim for a $1000 day, but end up losing almost everything.

And StockRoach also mentioned that it's probably better if I just left after the morning was done no matter what my P/L is. I like this idea simply because there are no monetary targets involved.

But in the end, I should just see how I feel after lunch and what I feel about the markets after lunch. It also could be just that I'm plain tired (perhaps not enough sleep?).

So what I'm going to do is that for the rest of the week I'll pack up and go home after lunch UNLESS the markets are moving real well (unlike today and yesterday).

If only I had left after lunch, I would have been $200 richer, and a whole lot happier...

Good Trades
9:55AM - Hewlet Packard (HPQ) was uptrending and the Futures were choppily moving up. HPQ reached the $38.00 level that had quite a bit of size on the offer. When it was about to break, I went long 6000 shares and I waited for HPQ to finish moving up and I got most of my position out after the upmove was over, but I had to chase prices back down to get the remainder out. I got out as follows: 1-cent winner (1200 shares), 2-cent winner (800 shares), 4-cent winner (2000 shares), 8-cent winner (1000 shares), 9-cent winner (1000 shares) ($278 profit before fees ; In: 9:55:35AM ; Long 6000 shares @ $38.00 ; Out: 9:59:43AM)

Bad Trades
10:30AM - AMD was moving up sloppily while the Futures were moving sideways. AMD reached some resistance at $23.50 and when it broke, I went long 4000 shares. The position went maybe 1 or 2 cents for me, but then came back down. I basically got chopped out of this position as it continued upwards after I got out. I got out as follows: 2-cent loser (1000 shares), 3-cent loser (900 shares), 4-cent loser (1000 shares), 6-cent loser (300 shares), 7-cent loser (200 shares), 8-cent loser (600 shares) ($167 loser before fees ; In: 10:30:04AM ; Long 4000 shares @ $23.50 ; Out: 10:31:36AM)

• I guess I could have held this position as it was trending, but looking at a loser this big was hard to take, so I bailed
• The Futures also weren't really helping and as a result, I should have reduced my share size on this position
• For most of the morning, AMD was moving fairly choppily and so I should have known that if I got into a position, it may try to shake me out of my position (which it did)