Don’t Fall Asleep While Trading

Okay…I didn’t fall asleep while I had my position on RIMM going, but I was complacent today, and the program selling that kicked in during the last 30-minutes of the trading session caught me totally off guard and ill-prepared. I already had it pictured in my mind how the trade was to play out, and frankly, you can’t do that in the market. You have to prepare for the craziest of scenarios. While today wasn’t nothing that we hadn’t seen before, everything that took place today – strong open and positive news, wouldn’t have led one to believe we would end the day on the note that we did. So I admit, I fell victim to complacency and to the casual assumption – two devastating traits, that I can’t make a habit of doing.

Ideally, I should have been moving up my stop-loss as we got closer into that final hour free-for-all. But I didn’t, instead I left my original stop-loss in place the entire time. I could have easily of walked out with over $150 on the trade, instead I took a loss of $276. Not a huge setback, but not something I want to get into the habit of doing either.

Nonetheless, tomorrow is the last day of the month, and overall, I have had an okay month of trading. Finished solidly in the green, but there is always room for improvement, even for the seasoned trader.

Also, I will be increasing my Risk factor on my day-trades, better known as the “R” next month to 0.7% of my portfolio value. This past month I lowered it to 0.5% after a month in June, where I basically broke even overall. I wanted to lower my risk exposure, until I got back into my groove. I think I have done as much this month and look to do even better in August.

Congrats to everyone who traded in TSM with us – we booked a solid 17% on that trade, lasting a little over a month. Our trade in Apple (AAPL) is just about to hit its price target as well.  

Here’s the chart on RIMM today, just in case you were curious…