The Path To Success...Is A Very Bumpy Road

Gross: -$367.20
Net: -$446.80
Loss From Top: $446.80
Trades: 43
Shares Traded: 56238

Stocks Traded Today (net profit/loss):
AT&T (T): +$105.50
Exxon Mobil (XOM): +$66.16
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): -$44.88
General Electric (GE): -$50.33
Home Depot (HD): -$112.09
Hewlett Packard (HPQ): -$156.85
Walmart (WMT): -$254.30

Ouch! Not a very good day at all. I did as I promised and I only traded until lunch. This hurt real bad...after two very weak performances, this was one of the last things I needed to see today.

This morning I was ready to take on anything and my spirits were high (for some reason, I feel like this everyday - which can't be a bad thing!). However, I just took too much risk in a morning market that was very reluctant to go anywhere.

All my small positions went for great winners, but every single big trade I put on really went against me. I never got to see green at all today.

A couple of things that went wrong today:

• All of my big losing trades today were put on without much confidence and hence I should have used smaller share size
• I broke a few rules - one trade that hurt was on HPQ - this one had a major level break, BUT it was one of those "One Print Breaks" that I'm not supposed to trade
• I was being more risky today - however it was more like taking risks blindly ("let me get into this position and hope it goes my way") instead of taking a calculated risk; the Futures and overall markets just didn't go anywhere, which means that there were no good setups
• Perhaps knowing I'll only trade till lunch really forced me to act because time was running out - I actually sat and watched the market go by for the first hour without trading at all (no good setups); not too sure if this was a contributing factor, but keep in mind, I was prepared to stay the whole day if the markets looked good
  

It was just one of those days where you flip and flop all over the place and you fall flat on your face right out of the starting gate.

So, I've just got to acknowledge what went wrong today, make a mental note, and then try to forget that this day every happened.

My path to success has been a little longer than I had originally expected and there were (and still are) many bumps in the road. I just hope I can survive these bumps that lay ahead and I hope there isn't that one big huge bump that will forever block my path.

As long as I know that this path leads to my ultimate destination, I will continue to follow it until I no longer have the strength to do so (or until my wife gets fed up and tells me to get a job - just kidding of course!)

Anyways, I also wanted to post up a list of stocks that were included in Phase III of the Hybrid market starting today. They are:

Banta Corp (BN)
Chesapeake Energy Corp (CHK)
Freddie Mac (FRE)
Mastercard (MA)
Office Depot (ODP)
WPS Resources Corp (WPS)
Canetic Resources Trust (CNE)
Chevron Corp (CVX)
Goldcorp Inc (GG)
Noble Corp (NE)
Novelis Inc (NVL)
Toyota Motor (TM)
Agilent Technologies (A)
Cooper Companies (COO)
Texas Pacific Land Trust (TPL)
Willis Group Holdings (WSH)
W Holding Company (WHI)
Enterprise Products Partners (EPD)

Tomorrow (Oct 13, 2006) the NYSE will be adding the following stock to the Hybrid market:

EMC Corp (EMC)

Hrmmmmmmm...EMC eh??? That one's interesting...I shall try my hand at trading this tomorrow. Two days ago I had a taste of the Hybrid market when I traded American Express (AXP) - and it did not taste good (I lost money).

I also want to note that starting today I'm reducing the font size of my posts. My posts are starting to get fairly long now and I get fairly tired of having to scroll down and down and down so much.

Good Trades
None.

Bad Trades
10:47AM - Walmart (WMT) made a near vertical move up while the Futures were moving up slowly. When WMT got to the $48.55 level, I punched in long 4000 shares when I thought it was going to break. Well, after a near vertical move made by WMT, you know what will most likely happen next - it went down and I had to get out as follows: 1-cent loser (1000 shares), 5-cent loser (2000 shares), 6-cent loser (1000 shares) ($170 loser before fees ; In: 10:47:22AM ; Long 4000 shares @ $48.55 ; Out: 10:49:16)

• For the last little while, the price action on WMT has been horrible - I should have seen this one coming
• Again, this was another stock that had a near vertical move and here I was trying to get long at the top of the move - not good!

11:01AM - Hewlett Packard (HPQ) was uptrending while the Futures were sideways. HPQ reached significant resistance at the $38.50 level. Just then, the whole level was taken out in one print, and I went long 6000 shares on some left over ECNs. Well, there's a reason I'm not supposed to get in on "One Print Breaks" and this was a prime example. I got out as follows: 2-cent loser (4900 shares), 4-cent loser (1100 shares) ($142 loser before fees ; In: 10:01:50AM ; Long 6000 shares @ $38.50 ; Out: 11:02:23AM)

• Well - what else can I say? I already have rules about One Print Breaks - why didn't I follow my rules?