Big Mike 

Goldman calling for 41% rally on energy before end of year.

They may be big enough to make it happen...

The pendulum seemed to swing from one extreme to the other over the past few days, going from unjustified lack of confidence to unjustified overconfidence. For some reason, the trades from both viewpoints seemed to work. The ones I was more afraid of were better than the ones where I had less fear. What is that? Why is there more question in a better situation, and less question in a worse?

The markets have days where up is down and down is up. It appears, so do I.

GaryD 

The pendulum seemed to swing from one extreme to the other over the past few days, going from unjustified lack of confidence to unjustified overconfidence. For some reason, the trades from both viewpoints seemed to work. The ones I was more afraid of were better than the ones where I had less fear. What is that? Why is there more question in a better situation, and less question in a worse? The markets have days where up is down and down is up. It appears, so do I.

Possibly, I hold onto memories from the times I feel I should have done something different. And those memories color future potential recreations of similar opportunities.

"Similar", but different. And the coloring obscures the difference.

GaryD 

Possibly, I hold onto memories from the times I feel I should have done something different. And those memories color future potential recreations of similar opportunities. "Similar", but different. And the coloring obscures the difference.

And perhaps, there, is the deficiency in "experience".

GaryD 

And perhaps, there, is the deficiency in "experience".

Experience may be better at telling what not to do, than what to do. If the outcome is always completely random, experience can only possibly protect us from downside, but has no power to deliver us to upside.

Big Mike 

Bias has a way of getting you in trouble. I did the same thing late last night, bailing on my short early because I felt it wasn't getting the traction it should, and that it was too obvious a play. I felt like I was overlooking something, so I exited. And then went to bed as I wasn't feeling great (stomach bug), only to wake up and see a massive sell off. If I had maintained the short I would have had about 0 MAE and would have hit my 20 point target (I was short from 39). Oh well. It happens. The trick is to make sure it doesn't happen often, and to learn from it when it does. In this case, I learned that I talked myself out of an awesome trade, because I felt like it was "too obvious" which meant that I had missed something. In fact, what I missed was that it was not too obvious. There were a lot of buyers all day, trying to pick bottoms, and those guys were getting creamed. Mike

Most days my bias is what make me money. If I don't have an opinion it sure makes it hard to trade. My broker won't allow me to be both long and short the market at the same time

The real issue is when we get stuck on that opinion and don't let what the market is telling us shine through. That was certainly where I fell short today. Fortunately I kept my risk tight and the damage is minimal. Live to fight another day if nothing else.

The 120 is simplified today. The weekly LSP is holding so far, resulting in an intermediate double bottom. The daily still holds the potential for a move to the blue zone for a W5. Up, or down, those are the choices for the day so far.

I sit here and laugh today at the confusion in the markets. Bipolar on 5 minute intervals...

I am a buyer above the double bottom, but not sure where yet. Sitting net 54 from the open, may require ES to test low, not sure. Lots of schizophrenic price movement right now and not interested.

I like 82.00 - 82.30, but not married to it.