Crewdog

Im so mad at my self right now. One of my problems recently has been getting out of trades when i see (usually small) profit and not following my plan all the way to my exit target. And this is what happened today... I got in at 33.18 with 500 shares for a 5ORB and as soon as my order filled i was down $50... damn. Didn't look at the spread. Well the price dropped a bit toward VWAP so i decided to add another 500 shares at 33.04 which brought my average down to 33.11. The price dropped below VWAP and i started to panic a bit. But it came back up and my unrealized showed $60 over break even, so i got out. The combo of the bad spread and the drop freaked me out... even thought the 5 min and even 1 min chart showed that i was in an awesome spot... So i told my self i wasn't going to look at DBX again for the day. Well like i always do, i came back later just to see what happened.... DAMN! WHY?!?!?!?!?! STUPID EMOTIONS!!!! I was in such a good spot and the charts backed me up the entire way! I would have started getting out around 35.03. A damn 2 point gain, and its still climbing.... So a hard lesson. A lesson that i already knew but find hard to follow when emotions come into play. I can make bigger profits and lower losses.... if i follow my plan and dont let those stupid emotions get in the way. One way to help with this, that i found, is to remove the unrealized for each trade. To only follow the charts, level 2, and other signals. Not seeing $$$ helps keep emotions in check. Sadly im on a work trip and on my laptop using an old layout instead of my desktop where i dont show it. Should have removed it first... oh well. Ill take my $200 and run for the day. To emotional for anything else.

Is there any real reason not to elect for Mark to Market accounting? It seems to have a lot of benefits for what we do. No wash sale rule, gains and losses are treated as ordinary income/loses vs capital. So if you have a loss greater than $3,000, you can deduct that loss from any other income, and possibly amend a previous year's tax return and get a refund. I know Andrew has mentioned that he lost $15,000 learning to trade. It would be a hard blow to lose that but also be taxed. the two big downsides i see are first convincing the IRS youre a trader. But i think we have talked about that before. But also that long term investments should be kept in a different account and separate from our trading accounts. Also, if you have a large unrealized gain at year end in one or more of your open positions, you are forced to close those positions (on paper) using the year end prices which increases your current year taxable gain. This is true whether you are long or short. Normally you do not realize gains until you actually close your positions, so be aware of this at year end if you have elected MTM. But because we are traders and dont hold positions, it should have minimal impact. Just trying to figure this out as the election to MTM is required with your 2017 tax return to be valid for the 2018 year. http://www.tradelogsoftware.com/resources/mark-to-market-form-4797/

got out with a $96 profit in pre-market. worried about this one all weekend, your example was definitely a lesson.

So while trading last friday, i got an emergency call from work and left early. I thought i hit my panic get out of everything button but i guess not. Im currently short 2000 shares of SNCR at 8.97 and im looking for your thoughts. I see resistance levels at about 9.40 and 9.75ish as potential stops (way more than i would risk losing normally). They gapped up the other day after closing a deal but the general trend has been down. Thoughts?