Last week I said that I overtraded to my heart's content, and this week I did pretty much the same. Hi, I'm Alfonso and I'm an addict (to trading).

I have been doing this for a while, trading for about 2 and a half years, and I KNOW that my best results have happened when I was spending less time in front of the computer, not more. To any trader with a little bit of experience this will sound perfectly obvious, at least when we are all cool and collected. But it is when the markets are open and you are given those glorious dip buys/breakouts/breakdowns opportunities that reason gives way to emotion.

"It's OK, I will keep a really tight stop loss so even if this trade goes against me, I will be good and get out so no harm will be done. It might actually be good practice to help my discipline and cut my losses quickly!". Does this sound familiar to anyone? Cos it definitely plays in my mind more than once and more than twice most days. Even if I get lucky and beat the mid-day odds, the risk is just not worth it. And more often than not I will be simply taking small bites off my overall profits. I know this, you know this, everyone knows this yet I keep falling into this trap. Why? I can only say that it is because I am a degenerate gambler as Master Sykes would put it.

Having admitted my full guilt for overtrading and that my best results have taken place when I spend less time in front of the computer, I will also say that the more experienced I get, the more I fear leaving a position unattended, so I tend to micromanage my trades instead of letting the price do its thing (ohhh, how often I cut a trade short only to watch the price hit the target a little while later...). Yes, I am playing it safe by getting out when I don't like what I see, and I hope I keep erring on the side of caution, but I do have to wonder if I should make an effort to maybe trade smaller and give more freedom to the price action instead of having my finger on the eject button all the time.

 

So, the weekly summary:

 

The good:

I seem to be back to consistent winning trades.

My losses are a lot smaller than they used to be (save for a $400 loss).

Even when I get out of a trade that spooks me, it usually ends up going the way I had predicted meaning that my selection criteria seems OK.

 

The bad:

Still holding a bag.

I overtraded like a champ. 

I was not good at recording all my trades on my journal.

 

Next week goals:

Trade less. A lot less.

Record all my trades.

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