If I ever trade like I did today again...

If I enter and exit trades the way I did today there is no point for me to embark on this highly ambitious goal I've set for myself because I'll inevitably be setting myself up to fail! And I don't like to fail.

Today was an absolute joke! I have no logical or illogical reason to enter and exit plays the way I did. This isn't about $$$ losses either... it's about principle! I was fortunate enough to only lose $92 ($80 of that was from commissions!) but my trading was absolutely unacceptable! I have a week and a half of decent trading... and then what, suddenly I'm a fucking expert?! NO dude!

I've already written about this before... but clearly I've forgotten what I wrote, so here goes again... PATIENCE, PATIENCE, PATIENCE! If you're not 100% confident about a play, then don't buy in! No wonder 90% of traders fail... and the irony of this... it's completely avoidable.

While I was mentally abusing myself earlier today (used for emphasis), I sent a PM to Tim Sykes in the GOTS chat room, ranting about my stupid trades... he replied and said, "Undisciplined trades are the ruin of all traders." Thanks Tim!

How poetic... how simple... how brilliant!

Patience is the offspring of discipline. Discipline is the offspring of confidence. Confidence comes from experience... do you see how this goes round and round?! The psychology of trading is truly mind blowing. I hate using hypothetical scenarios but think about how many more successful traders there would be if they all possessed these simple characteristics while trading? You could apply this to any hobby/trade/or just life in general...

My first bonehead trade of the day was PMI. I shorted 500 shares @ $4.5012... it was doing that sidways price action thing... which makes nervous. I need to get over that quick... comes with experience... anyhow I held for 15 minutes and sold @ $ 4.50!! Need I say more?!

PMI climbed to $4.95 20 minutes later and held for a bit, so not totally bad on my part... but 5 hours later it totally shit the bed, dropping to as low as $4.00! I don't do the woulda/coulda/ shoulda scenarios... so the only thing I'm choked about is the fact that I didn't short it with confidence.

My second knucklehead play of the day was SPNG... let's just say I got my ass handed to me in the GOTS chat room... and rightfully so! This was indeed embarrassing... even though I'm a noobtrader, I'm not an idiot... and that was, plain and simple, and idiot trade to make. To add insult to injury, I also paid $60 in commissions!! I didn't know I had to pay $30 in commissions per trade to buy 25,000 shares! I trust all these expensive lessons will pay off down the road.

On a more positive note though, I'm still in RDN and have a nice position holding 2,000 shares. RDN had some heavy profit taking towards the end of the day, but rebounded very nicely during afterhours... I'll follow-up with my overall experience on this trade tomorrow... happy trading tomorrow!