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Strategies & Market Trends : The Final Frontier - Online Remote Trading -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TFF who wrote (1693)	12/9/1997 7:17:00 PM
From: Ira Player	Respond to of 12617

irby, One of the most important items I ever added to my bag of tricks is also the simplest. A notebook. When I enter into a trade, I always note the reason for entry, the expected results and the actual results. Under the entry, I paste the chart on entry and the chart on exit. (I may need to modify this for day trading, this has been my position trading method). Periodically, I review the results to see if there are any recurring signatures that I can detect and analyze to improve my technique. This type of analysis resulted in my current hard rule use of stops. Prior to May 1997, I applied mental stops, but found that I was not using sufficient discipline and had adjusted the stops when there was a move against me. I rationalized that I did not want to be stopped out of a gain because of a short term run against me. Analysis of my notebook showed that I lost significantly more by ignoring the original stop, avoiding taking the loss than I gained on those that reversed after a short slide. Without detailed records, no reliable analysis is possible resulting in unpredictable to non existent capacity to improve technique. Ira