Tuning Out the Noise

I tweeted on Monday, the last day of February, that I was looking forward to a new month and that I felt like we had some momentum going into the first week. And, as we've seen so many times before, the first day proved to be a test for all of us. I was fortunate to have some good trades on and was able to book profits on the day. Wednesday the market righted the ship and things appeared to be calming down. It starts to feel , after a while, as if we're all in a snow globe that someone has shaken and it takes 2 or 3 days before all the flakes have settled. We read the news on the web, Middle East, Oil, Eurozone, and the news channels that seem to push the panic button at the first sign of a pullback.

I've been trading for 20 years. I've followed and read books about trading by John Murphy, John Bollinger, William O'Neil and even Benjamin Graham. I've developed my own style of looking at charts and patterns to determine whether or not a trade looks good to me. I watch the stream on Twitter every day where we have the expertise and knowledge of some of the best traders around offering their advice and sharing their knowledge. But lately with all of the information available over the web and on the stream I sometimes find myself wanting to jump on any bus that comes down the road. It usually happens after I've had a few bad trades and start to question my trading style.

So it's at times like these that I need to shut off the noise, close down Twitter, Stocktwits and the financial news channels and stop looking at every stock that's mentioned on the stream. I'll go back to trading the way that has always served me best. When the trade goes as I'd expected I give myself a big pat on the back. When I jump into a trade too early instead of waiting for the signal I know is there, I'll cut my losses and put it behind me. Sometimes I'll make sure my stops are in place and just take some time away from the screen and all the noise. I think that we all need to do this in order to keep our heads in the game.
I'll close for now but I'm looking forward to seeing you all on the stream this morning... the futures are all pointing higher and I know how "giddy" we all get when that happens.

Good luck today and trade them well. Let's go get 'em