It’s been awhile since I gave an update. I have been wrestling with my over-trading demons. I have been trying different ways to help based on the trading psychology books I have read. Though I was seeing slow improvement it wasn’t enough. I knew another bad hulk day (which the over-trading triggers) may put me over and quit trading. I choose poor setups at least 1/3 of the time. Thus, it is possible on my first trade of the day, I am already over-trading since I shouldn’t have taken that trade. I needed to do something drastic and immediate or I wasn’t going to make it. So I created a plan to help deter my over-trading and implemented it earlier this month. It was brutal. But, apparently helpful. I forced myself to trade to 10am (EST) every day or until max loss or max trades are reached. I know 30min doesn’t sound too long, but for me with an over-trading issue who’s bread and butter trades for the first 2 months live were the 2min ORBs (thus I was usually finished for the day at 9:35am) this would not be easy. So it started bad and then got worse. In 8 days, I hit my max loss 5 times (one of them I went hulk with a 2.5X max loss), hit my max trades on two days and only made it to 7am once (for a loss). Now for someone who hits max loss twice a month, hitting it every other day is quite painful. But, that was the point. I guess the pain finally hit some crucial limit and day nine my trading changed. Now my last 5 days have been very good trading days. I was able to trade to 10am (EST) – or longer, each day. No over-trading (though the urge is there it’s under control). I notice my initial thought to a trade is now different. Originally it was, “that looks like a good setup, quick take the trade.” Now my initial thought is, “that looks like a good setup, now let me wait a bit to see if I can get a good pull back or volume confirmation.” Yes, some trades now pop/drop without me, but that doesn’t seem to bother me anymore. It’s not about the money, it’s about learning to trade. I saw the results immediately Good Trades Neutral Trades Bad Trades Last month 41% 23% 36% Past Week 58% 42% 0% I rank trades by quality now not by P/L. A good trade is a good setup and execution. There can be some slippage in execution of course. A neutral trade is usually a good setup but there was a one or more noncritical mistakes. I didn’t wait for a better entry, share size was off a bit, exited to early or even a bad setup that I realized quickly and got out of the trade. A bad trade is commonly one that should have never been taken. These “bad” trades disappeared this week, but were common since I went live. Other news…. Looks like the 2min ORB has really faded. It was my real money maker for my first 2 months live, but now they have really disappeared (at least for the stocks I am looking at). I just don’t see that setup anymore. Now with that said, Intel was a near perfect 2min ORBD setup this morning which I took for my big trade of the day. I actually waited an extra second before I took the trade because I didn’t believe it. I thought those were gone, but it had all the criteria I look for in the setup. Luckily, I took it before I lost my entry. But, that was the only 2m ORBD setup I have seen in the past two weeks. They may still be out there, but not on the stocks I look at. I usually look at only 3 and most of the time they are common with the stocks in play that Andrew and Carlos list. Sorry for the wordy recap. Thanks for reading. Hopefully you had a good week. Rob