An Attitude Check

Net: +$512.27
Trades: 70
Shares Traded: 29800

Stocks Traded Today (net profit/loss):
Corn Products International, Inc. (CPO): +$258.95
Lyondell Chemical Company (LYO): +$218.16
Cemex S.A. B de C.V. (CX): +$89.58
Liz Claiborne, Inc. (LIZ): +$73.16
Eagle Materials, Inc. (EXP): +$52.89
Devon Energy Corporation (DVN): +$45.25
MasterCard Incorporated (MA): +$25.15
Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ): -$13.53
salesforce.com, inc. (CRM): -$22.04
AAR Corp. (AIR): -$23.53
PetroChina Company Limited (PTR): -$24.78
Canadian Natural Resource Ltd (CNQ): -$30.72
The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. (EL): -$45.71
Prudential Financial, Inc. (PRU): -$62.79
Armor Holdings, Inc. (AH): -$74.21

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I was trying to smoke the day....

I came in on those days with high expectations and I had full intentions of coming way with $1000's of dollars.

It was the beginning of the month and the previous week of trading showed promise and I thought to myself that if I came in with a killer attitude and try to smoke every position I put on, there would be no reason not to come away with mega profits on the day.

The only problem was that I was expecting every position I got in to be a big home-run and that I'd come away with 100's of dollars on the trade.

As a result, I hung around when the positions didn't go anywhere and I held onto losers longer than I usually hold them.

And going in with bigger positions only exacerbated the problem as this made the losers hurt even more.

Since I had high expectations for those two trading days, I came away really dejected at the end of the day....not only didn't I make the big $ as I was expecting, I couldn't even pull out some profits.

So today I came in with the thoughts of just trading.....I didn't have any expectations for the day and tried to keep a level head.

Every position I put on didn't have to be a home-run and if things started to look dicey, I just bailed......plus I kept my losers on a very short leash (unlike the previous two trading days).

But today I felt like I was the king of bad timing....

There were sooo many stocks that were moving in a nice, non-stop trend and I'd get in right at the top and once I was in, the stock decided to start to roll over and reverse....it seemed like time and time again I'd get caught in that trap.

But the one trade that had me fuming a bit was on PetroChina (PTR). At around 1:30PM I went long as I saw this one making new intra-day highs and it's trend was a nice gradual one....

So I get long and wait and wait and it just didn't want to go further....then it looks like it was going to roll over on a 5-minute chart....there were other stocks that were beginning to move and I was thinking to myself "Not again! Another one where I got in at the top and now it's going to roll over and move down!".

So I punch out for a small loser but wouldn't you know it....as soon as I got out, it just explodes to the upside! And the move was a powerful one as well! Level after level was taken out quickly and I tried to get long again at $117.00, $117.50, and at $118.00 but the bloody stock just blew past all the levels and I never could get long again.



PTR just continued to move up $3 or $4 from where I was originally long and I was a little upset as I just watched and saw how strong a move it was.....*sigh* all of these "bad timing" trades cost be quite a bit today - both in realized losses and lost opportunities......

One good trade and no bad ones today.

So tomorrow I'll just have the intentions of trading and I'll try not to have any expectations of the trading day (lest I not meet it and get all upset about nothing again).

Good Trades
(trades in which I make $250 or more)

• 11:27:21AM - Corn Products Inc. (CPO) had been making a strong move up since about 10:45AM and when it came up to the $42 level I went long 700 shares when it broke. I held it for a while and got out as follows: 30-cent winner (300 shares), 40-cent winner (200 shares), 45-cent winner (200 shares) ($260 profit before fees ; Long 700 shares @ $42.00 ; Out: 12:04:34PM)
  

Bad Trades
(trades in which I lose $150 or more)

• None