Volatility Has Dried Up

Yeah, it's feeling more like August now. In the market at least... what's with this weather? 57 degrees? Damn!

Anyway, I lost some money today. I never explained yesterday either, so I'll start with that.





See that second 5-minute bar? Well I got short around $104.50. The stock spiked up to $105 on like 300 shares. I was pissed and so I doubled my short. Then, it spiked up to $106.


Booyah.


So I hit my $1000 loss limit for the day. I called my company and asked for $500 more. They obliged. I got short again... initially, it worked, but then it ran to a new high and stopped me out up there. So, I lost another $500 and then the stock tanked.


Of course.


Anyway, I basically did all the wrong things on the trade. It set off all kind of alarms here and I came into today confident that I wouldn't do anything stupid again. However...




See how AG ran up to $40? Well the other stocks in the sector were weak (and AG is no leader) so I got short at $40. I covered at $40.30. I was pissed and then pulled a revenge trade and got long. I got out at $39.80. Ugly all around folks. I lost almost $500 in the stock.

Basically, my head is out of the game. I was supposed to leave for vacation on Sunday but cancelled and hung around in case Hurricane Dean hit the oil rigs and the US. Meanwhile, it didn't. So while I'm here physically, mentally I think I'm on vacation. Instead of beating myself up over these last 2 days, I'm going to focus on the last few weeks and take some time. Perhaps I'll try a few swing trades or take only a couple of longer term trades each day. We'll see.

Here's the stats:

P&L, -$640
Best, UBB, $241
Worst, AG, -$464

shares traded, 38,000
24 stocks traded, 11 winners, 13 losers.
244 trades.