I’ve had a couple not so stellar ES sessions, and mid-day Monday I switched over to YM with great success. I had not played YM in a while, and still, the fills can be terrible in comparison, but the outcome was great. I’m going to stick with YM for a bit, if nothing else for psychological reasons.
I was up extra the early the other day and loaded up the platform to see how things were unfolding for the day. I saw a couple good setups developing on ES and took them. Bingo! I was up and decided it would be best to leave the rest of the plays for regular market hours. As I am closing out I see another setup, take it, winner. Now I’m starting to think “this is too easy”. And when you start thinking like that you get burned.
Around 8:00am EST, some traders who plan on making the market obviously show up. Next thing you, the gaming begins. Well, I was on the wrong side of it before I see it happening. Being a little tired, and a little incensed, I started breaking all the rules. I start letting emotion get involved, I start overtrading, both day one mistakes that have no business in a trading session.
That was the setup for a mental block on ES. Switching to YM helped that, and when I wasn’t interested in the e-mini, I switched over to scanning for small stock scalps, which were abundant.
There are several morals to this story. Never ever break the rules. It snowballs… what irritated you will only irritate you more. If you lost, you will only lose more. Avoid afterhours unless there is a specific reason for doing it. If you are playing afterhours, it may be indicative of a gambling mentality instead of a seeing a business opportunity.
If you find yourself in a situation where you consciously broke you own rules, you may find yourself in a period of uncertainty about your trading. When that happens, walk away for a few sessions and regroup, or try switching to another index or instrument for a period of time. Either way, the war is not won in a day, but it can be lost in a day if you try to force something or fall outside of your trading parameters.
September 16th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
You are correct, that overtrading is a lack of discipline and emotion is usually the trigger. I have found the ES to provide some greater degrees of gamesmanship than the YM, likely due to the liquidity. But if you have the nerves for the fakes you won’t be one of the suckers.