Just Trying To Avoid That Uncomfortable Feeling

Gross: +$918.08
Net: +$720.57
Loss From Top: 0
Trades: 108
Shares Traded: 178504

Stocks Traded Today (net profit/loss):
General Electric (GE): +$294.14
AT&T (T): +$276.69
Motorola (MOT): +$158.82
Merck (MRK): +$92.92
Exxon Mobil (XOM): +$46.89
Walmart (WMT): -$2.56
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): -$22.19
Home Depot (HD): -$129.28

Unlike the previous two trading days, most of my trades today were put on comfortably, without much stress, and with more confidence, which helped me pull off a relatively good day.

Yesterday and Monday, I felt like a lot of my trades were "forced", as if I really didn't want to put on the trade, but did so anyways. It also made it more uncomfortable because I didn't have a whole lot of confidence in them and as a result, I was feeling very uneasy for most of Monday and Tuesday.

Also a contributing factor on Monday and Tuesday was the fact that I saw myself in the red (negative), which had me even more on edge. A combination of all these factors probably led me to making some decisions that were probably not the wisest and resulted in the poor trading performances on those days.

Today, I just kept things simple and reduced my share size (started the day off trading 2000 shares at a time). Almost all of my trades were put on with confidence and there wasn't the slightest hesitation. This really made the trading day easy, as I was not too concerned about how I would get out if the position went against me (because my share size was smaller and much easier to exit).

All last week, that's how I was trading - using smaller share size so that it was less stressful and I had more confidence in putting on trades. By doing this, I believe that my mind was clearer and less emotionally involved and I was able to deliver a consistent trading week.

I will admit that over the weekend I started thinking about money again and about how much more I would be able to make if I increased share size. This had me starting this week on the wrong foot and in the wrong mindset.

What I've got to do is to continue trading comfortably and not force myself into uncomfortable situations (like getting huge positions without any real confidence in them). Whenever I trade this way, the day seems so stress-free and the profits just seem to magically appear (well...ok, I wouldn't say magically).

It also helped that today we had markets that moved around quite a bit today - and my main task for today was to sit and wait out all that market "listlessness" (again, thanks to Stockroach for reminding me :)) and to pounce on the opportunities when they presented themselves.

The only unfortunate thing about today was that I wasn't able to capitalize on some of the big moves many stocks had today. I was getting in and out fairly quickly all day - something I felt comfortable doing, so today I didn't take any real big swings.

An example was on AT&T (T). At around 1:45PM, AT&T (T) just started ripping. I took 4 quick trades with 2000 shares each and managed to make 1-cent, 2-cent, 3-cent, and a 4-cent winner on each (see chart). On the entire move, I managed to make $200.

Because I was in and out fast today, there were no good trades nor any bad trades.

Let's see if I can keep myself in the zone for the rest of this week!

Good Trades
None

Bad Trades
None