PATIENCE

Rating the setups

• * Tradable
• ** Good
• *** Great
• **** BEST
• ***** BEST OF THE BEST

Why not trade all of the setups?

The lower rated setups woulda take up most of my time/energy/ and buying power. But would add very little to my bottomline. Over time, i began to realize that majority of my profits were coming in from the 4* and 5* trades even though they were a small minority of my trades. And sometimes by trading the 1* and 2* setups, i would completely miss a 4* or 5* setup. The distraction of having so many trades would cause inferior entries and exits.I realized the opportunity cost was so great that I could make more money by trading less. I wanna trade only the best setups.

“My track record had nothing to do with me being smarter than him, or better than him. It was because i was being very selective,You wanna win at trading? Then only bet when when you know you’re right. The lesson here is don’t trade just to keep busy. I have to constantly fight that urge and i struggle constantly with it like everyone else. It’s hard to stare at numbers all day long and not act. It’s hard to watch people post trades in chatrooms, all day long, and not act. But just because everyone else is buying waffles, means its a good idea.” -LX21

“Trading to keep busy costs you money, you need to be patient. Patient to wait for the best opportunities. Patient to wait for the best entries. And patient when your in a trade, to let it work. Think of it this way, as traders, Our job is to be patient. Most of our time should be spent watching and waiting.” -LX21

“ I just wait until there is money lying in the corner, and all i have to do is go over there and pick it up.” - Jim Rogers

ETSY

Didn't see any plays worth and was gonna open a paper trading account but instead just traded on my real account.. -_- went against my specific rules i laid out 2wks ago..

ETSY
I knew at the buy that this was gonna be a forced trade and away from the sykes strategies.. I was fine with the risk/loss but what i am not fine with was that i didn't even follow my own PERSONAL strategy that i had laid out. Pure speculation play off the charts with a lot of hope. I knew with conviction i shouldn't trade this but i went ahead anyways.

** Next time no ideal plays are in play, I will switch to the paper trading account option to test my strategies from there and instead of my real account.

ADDED 25 Feb 2016:
... I fell asleep before the market open and woke up at around 1pm market time.. felt like no plays were in the day. WATT was a good one cept i was asleep for it, nothing in the PM looked good and ETSY is failing throughout the day as a possible play. I was too antsy, felt like i needed to trade, was without internet for more than a week and was away from the market for 2wks. I was out of touch of the market yet i forced a trade, a trade i normally wouldn't have made. More mistakes yet again and again it was more emotional than the strategy itself.. I can finally see why some of sykes students had gradually shifted to other plays/strategies to keep them preoccupied. Impatience was my top downfall today and slightly less of a greediness.

Things to work on:

- IMPATIENCE- Today's #1 downfall; If i want to test out my own strategies, it will be using a paper trading account. Forced a trade i normally wouldn't have done since it was not an ideal play.

- HOPE/Greed- Even though i technically chased by a ton and almost bought the top, there was 3 opportunities where i could have sold for a small profit/breakeven. After I entered the trade, I found out that my personal strategy using RSI/MACD told me the trend was already broken after I entered, I still ignored my Personal strategy/checklist and "hoped" the stock would maintain the uptrend, After it failing twice, I still "hoped" it would uptrend when in fact it was clearly in a downtrend/support had broken..

- Preparation- I don't think you can ever prepare enough for the market day. However, i'm nowhere near where i want to be as far as preparedness prior to the opening bell. I still have yet to run my own scans and still using sykes/grittani's watchlist to look at stocks.