Today was probably the toughest day since starting this experiment. Everything that was great for the whole week, namely, gold, palladium, oil, and natural gas, reversed on a dime. Didn’t lose much of my closed equity, but gave back most of my open equity, around $4,000. It wasn’t just the reversal, but it was also the bad trading that followed. I didn’t have the right mindset and I should have gone for a walk, instead I kept looking for opportunity in the little volatility that was available. That’s a sure recipe for bad things to happen. I compounded the loss in open equity, with crappy trades, short-term trades and trading errors (3 of them!!! Hard to believe…). I limited the damage, but it still sucked.
The important thing on these days is to let go of things I didn’t have control, namely the snap reversal in gold and oil and then get away from the screen until my mind is clear. Sometime that takes a day or two. Getting back on the screen the same day usual makes the problem worse.
I will pick it back up one trade at the time. Slowly. Focused. Process.