First of all, maybe don’t kill yourself if you lose money gambling online. What a weird world.
I guess I shouldn’t have opened the cursed app on my way to the airport.
Anyway… if you lost everything, grab some APEX at 80% off with the code GVXZJABB.
I had my parents visiting me this week, so it was with difficulty that I stayed away from the market. FOMO has been fucking real this week folks. I’ve been waiting MONTHS for the market to do something a bit more fun than the slow grind-up we had recently.
It finally happened. The week my parents were here. After a year without seeing them, it was not even on the table for me to trade the RTH session. So I did what every reasonable person would do.
Wake up much earlier to trade London;
Go on with my life from 10 AM to 8 PM;
Journal and study charts from 8 PM to 11 PM.
It was even harder as last week was a red week for me, where I got completely played by my lack of reaction to a faster market.
My goal this week was to take very little trades and get back on the horse.
I guess we can call that a success. I scalped NQ and got a bit lucky, which always feels good after a mediocre week.
However, that’s not why I’m writing today. I’m writing today because I felt massive FOMO while I was with my family. Not proud of it, but I couldn’t keep thinking of the market for some time. It’s truly hard to disconnect as a retail trader. I “work” all the time. No break. This is what I love, but for the first time, I wish it would have been different with my family.
What was hard was to take 10/15pts trades and then see the market have 200 points moves, multiple times a day. I felt like I was missing out on a lot of great setups and $. It didn’t even cross my mind that I could have had a terrible week adapting to this new vol. I only saw the bright side of the “what if”. If you’re a psychologist, feel free to jump in and explain why.
There’s something though that I can’t stop thinking about. I was kind of forced to stop my day by 9 AM. I didn’t force any trade, just got lucky for the vol and on the good side of the coinflip this week. But what if it helped me stay green during the week? I don’t have a great year so far, averaging c. 20pts/day. Most of my winning days have been one scalp and done. Most of my red days have been looking for more than that.
I have my templates and processes based on the different market regimes, but it seems that I’m just more relaxed and peaceful with less screen time. It sucks because I want to focus and get the maximum from better vol conditions like now. But can I? Am I strong enough mentally? Can I get out of my comfort zone? Or is it a mistake?
There’s no playbook. No one knows.
Time will tell.