One of our members, N.S., wrote to us today; he's a young guy we like very much. He's relatively new to trading, but he has an incredible dedication to learning and evolving, and he's smart, picking up things very fast. We have a lot of faith in him and believe that in a couple years he will make a very good professional trader.
He wrote to us today about a trade he took. He was very upset because he didn't follow the rules he knew so well and froze when the stock hit his mental stop and kept diving and diving. Finally, he couldn't stand it anymore and sold near the low of the day, just before the stock bounced again. How many of us have done that early in our career? We'd venture to say all of us.
His entry was excellent -- it was off a stock with a good daily chart, from a solid pattern, and the stock was printing decent volume at the time. However, and this has been happening often in this market, the volume on the break of the intraday consolidation did not come through, as the buyers were just not interested. His original stop was around a dime, and the stock went up a dime before it reversed -- at that time his stop should have been moved up (and he knows that) for a loss of probably a nickel -- very small to say the least. His exit though -- now that's the problem. Have you ever noticed that often the times that you blow your stop are on trades that immediately reverse? It seems to be much easier to obey a stop on a stock has been above the number for a few hours or even 30 minutes, but when a stock reverses on one immediately-- that's the most dangerous time and new traders can often find themselves just watching the stock go through the stop and not pushing the sell button. There's something about losing money instantly that is especially irritating, like you didn't even get your money's worth out of the trade, not even any entertainment value! Awareness is everything and if you are aware that your weakness is not obeying your stops on trades that immediately reverse, you can tell yourself that before every trade -- OK, sometimes I freeze on immediate reversals, I know this, and I'm going to make sure it doesn't happen. This, in our opinion, is the best solution for this problem. Awareness of the problem, and recognition of this before entry of every trade (especially in markets like this which are not particularly favorable to momentum trading).
This kid, N.S., knows the theory very well -- and he has soaked up everything we have taught him. But the execution takes a long time to master -- the reason we have faith in him is that he learns from every mistake. We told him today that once you enter a position, then stop thinking. You know where the potential profit exit and the stop are before you enter, you know what to look for, and you know what to do. From here on, you're a machine. It's not easy, but we are firm believers that anyone who is willing to learn, and has true discipline and dedication, can become a good, consistent, professional trader.
