Rule Adherence and My Best Week Ever

This week has been my best trading week ever so far, mainly due to some nice gains with HHWW, GASS, but also my two biggest winning positions to date...CWST ($1878) and BSFT ($4323 in IB and another $372 in Speedtrader).  I was short 3500 shares on CWST at 6.75 and it gapped down the next day.  I took a large short position in BSFT (2000 shares at an average of nearly $25.50), knowing that a big selloff would be coming given that they have a lockup expiration approaching on December 22nd.  I need to thank both InvestorsLive and MarvelMeister of Investor's Underground for the trade idea.

My total profit this week so far has been $7700.

I've been working a lot this week on remaining disciplined while winning; I've had problems in the past of getting sloppy while winning.  To help with that, I've started keeping a log of how much I stick with my trading rules.  Every day, I write down the percentage of trades where I stuck with my rules.  For example, if I make 5 trades and follow my rules on 4 of them, then my percentage is 80%. The goal is to hit 100% every day.  So far this has been my tally:

11/30:  100%
12/1:  75%
12/6:  100%
12/7:  100%
12/8:  100%
12/9:  71%
12/10:  86%
12/13:  89%
12/14:  100%
12/15:  100%
12/16:  100%

I know some traders like to set profit targets, but personally I don't like to do that, because I think it can make you undisciplined.  You can start to take trades that maybe you shouldn't take, especially if you are down for the day or month and you haven't met your target.  The fact is, if you consistently follow your rules, and your strategies are profitable strategies, then the profits will take care of themselves over time, just as I showed in my last blog post.

Until next time...

Disclosure:  I am an affiliate of Investor's Underground and I receive a commission when people sign up for the service through my affiliate link.  However, I would never recommend anything I haven't used or don't use myself.  I have found IU to be very helpful in my progress as a trader.  You can also see independent reviews of the IU chatroom here.