The index futures are trading all over the place, and I find myself trading well in the morning only to give back my gains come the afternoon. I brought Elroi over to the /NQ with me this week because I need to keep my eye on the jackass in case he does something stupid—which he does from time to time because my coding skills are a bit…meh.
My algo loved today and had its best day ever. However I sullied all of my morning discretionary profits and much of Elroi’s algorithmic profits by flip flopping in the chop. 80% of my trading errors occur when the market churns. My exponential moving averages converge, my Keltner channel goes sideways, and price chops at like 1000 miles per hour. And I go, “shorts have this, SELL SHORT on the breakdown. OH FUCK it’s a fake out, COVER, here come the longs, FUCKIN’ BUY’EM UP, SLAAAMMMMM, back down.” I used to do this a good 4 or five times before I snapped out of my insanity. Now it takes two bad trades for me to realize I am a jackass and sit on my hands.
The problem is the market did that to me twice this afternoon. Lol, I am leaving that sentence because it speaks volumes to my mistake. The market did nothing to me, I only did these things to myself. I review these conditions all the times. I know to stay away. In the morning, I do. In the afternoon I loosen my focus a bit. I will go through my trades and verify this tendency but I smell a “no afternoon” rule brewing up.
Here are Elroi’s trades:
