Tuesday, October 14, 2008

An emotional bubble...

After a set back in trading. I feel like I am in an emotional bubble. I need to remind myself to stop trading right now as it is not going to be very thought full and calculated moves. I am not going to be as patient as I should be. Every little move in a stock, that I usually can ignore, is making me edgy.
There is a lot of hope working behind the scenes also, hope that I can make it back quickly, as quickly I had lost it. All I need is just one good trade, just like the trade that took it away.
I am unable to stop myself from watching every move in the stocks, trying to listen to every news and read everything I can. Like something will suddenly change and my account will be full again.

My expectations for profits has changed also, if before I was content with $100 in profits now I want (and maybe need) a $1000 in profits, regardless of the situation of the trade.
It is easy to see a loss and say ok, but it is very difficult to accept it mentally and emotionally , walking away without any action. In reality you see a loss and you say to yourself ok no problem losses are a part of trading, but deep down you are planing to recover all the loss in one day with one swift trade. Taking one quick trade after another losing even more.

As today was one of those days where I could have made a good profit but because of the recent activity in my account and the stock mkt I am jumping every move. The fear factor has increased and I am reacting as fast and furious. Today I was holding both GOOG puts and calls which is a better strategy considering the GOOG’s earnings coming out on Thursday. The stock can sharply move either direction. But during the day I talk my self out of the call position at a loss when I saw the stock moving down. Just before that I had sold my puts fearing the stock in moving higher.
In fact, I could have made money in both of them for it was not my high expectation, and not just accepting normal profits. I had bought GOOG calls for $10, I entered a limit order for $21 (more then double the price) of course it did get a fill but I checked it did hit $18 before it fell back to $9 that is where I sold. Last night as I was entering limit order I was thinking of $15 (a reasonable gain) but the I talked myself out of it and the little voice in my head told me that I can make more.