Today's Buffoonery

Lesson #1: It is damn near impossible to trade profitably from home when my youngest boy is home sick. It seemed everytime I placed a trade that his "Spidey Sense" picked up on it, and then he had to be hanging on me, or needed a bottle, or a diaper change. Today was a day where one had to stay on top of things second to second, and take profits quickly. Trying to accomplish that while taking care of my boy was foolish.

Lesson #2: Shorting Goldman Sachs is just crazy. Next time I think about shorting them, I think I'll just wire them some money instead.

Seriously, today was a total bust. I waited for GS to bounce after the huge gap down, but it just kept going down, and I'm watching the market puke on itself, and I'm thinking, its just gonna keep on going. So I short 200 shares. Within a few seconds my position was underwater. I didn't cover because I thought it was just the typical bounce that happens after an issue gaps down. 4 points later I was satisfied that it was not a bounce, that the gap was going to fill entirely, and so I covered, losing 4 points. Now I don't normally day trade, but I'm well aware of how to do it. Not having a well-defined risk or stop was just foolish. It was like being a deer in the headlights.

So by the time I covered GS, my whole mindset was screwed. I panic sold LWAY, not far from the LOD. Then I did the same with ONSM.

The only bright spot in the day was getting in fairly early on SMSI, and making over 1 point. That point saved the day. I ended up losing about 1K, or just under 1% from yesterday's close.

I felt really really bad about my buffoonery, until I read some other trader's blogs. They will remain nameless, but they seemed to suffer from some of the same buffoonery- namely, shorting into the morning gap down.

I go into tomorrow holding only 200 QID and my MVIS position.