The pain is my side........

Every year there seems to be a trade or two that stands out in my mind. Those trades I remember for a very long time. My wife complains I beat myself up too much and that very few of these trades of the year are for the positive. At the end of August, the overall market was down about 12% and I was up 8%.

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That is when I went on vacation. I was doing a swing trade in the QLD. I had a good entry of 72 during the middle of July. My target was 93. QLD had been as high as 83 and was trading around 77. While on vacation, I had no stop - no real access to the internet and was not following the market. I assumed the pullback was like the one seen in April. I wanted my 93. By the time I was back from vacation, the market had cracked hard. I tried getting out at 70 but the market never rallied back to that point. After breaking the first major rule - no stop, I decided to break the second major rule - allowing a swing turn into an investment. I still own it today. This position has cost my account 15%.

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The second trade is a failure to trade the plan. The PFF ETF has a habit of breaking hard and bouncing back when bad news hits the market. My plan was to buy 500 shares around 22, 500 shares around 21 and finally buy 1000 shares around 20 using an 18 or 19 as a stop loss. My target would be a bounce of 27 to 28 area. I bought the first 500 but lost the guts to buy the rest. On the day PFF bounced from 22 and change to 24 and change, trading in PFF was really weird that morning so I got out with a small gain. My lack of following though with my trading plan was caused but my screwing up the QLD trade. I was too scared to trade properly being down so much.

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I hope the New Year clears my mind and I can get back on track. I was trading well given the market until my vacation. I normally place stop loss orders when I can't watch the market. I picked a bad year to break that rule. The cost of these two trades above puts my account down about 28% for the year instead of being close to break even in my main IRA account.