This is going to be a LOT longer than usual because I want to cover the whole picture of my decision making on this very eventful day. Today's trade halted my 2 week hot streak. I was not in tune enough to changing market conditions and refused to stop myself out when downside for my trades was, in hindsight, about 3 to 1.
^
Or so I thought... turned out Gold was a much better indicator of further downside/upside risk
I started out the quarter being cautious and trading only when rigid clear technical themes were repeating. When I wasn't trading I was experimenting; testing out different ways of looking at market with simulated trading. I wasn't trying out new ideas without testing them out first.
I ended the quarter with trading without stops, bad entries with ~3 to 1 downside vs upside and worst of all I added to losing positions when I didn't time it right. I also didn't notice, typically after hot streaks, that I'm not trading any more - I'm gambling to continue my hot streak while ignoring the fact that with appreciating volatility I could of easily erased 4 good profitable trades after adding to a losing position.
I tried to rely on correlations that worked consistently this quarter/month/week but gradually broke down one by one today and when I realized that doesn't work any more I sticked with exclusively watching the tape for signals. The tape is a double edged sword: on "normal" days it is relatively easy to read but on chaotic days like today its almost impossible to keep up with. Flooded with lengthy clusters of big prints, todays tape only made sense in hindsight and even then it was difficult to decipher into concrete signals.
I need to get back to paper trading until I get back on the right track. Even though my account didn't take any hits, the next loss could of been too big.
You can't force a good trade when you're not experienced enough to deal with rapidly morphing intraday structures with unfamiliar themes like in today's chaos.
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