I say keep it in this journal, that way we as well as you can see the transition months from now when you re-read your journal.

.. Last Thursday I checked my bank accounts online and saw a telephone transfer that took away 75% of my checking account balance. Neither I nor my wife had done this, so I immediately called the bank. It took them a couple of days but they did credit the money back to my account. In the process, they advised me to change all my passwords and PINs. .....

As to trading, I have had my ups and downs since last Fall. Recently, I have tried to step back and look at the big picture. I have never had a problem finding good entries; I suspect very few people have a problem with that especially if you read any of the threads on this forum. There are dozens of excellent systems here and it does not take very long to find one that you can feel comfortable with.

I have focused in on 3 main points that have been the fundamental reasons for my having so much difficulty getting positive traction in the market.

1. A good portion of my losses have come as a result of entering trades either pre-market or very shortly (with in the first 2-3 minutes) of the market opening. The pre-market volume is so much less than that after opening, it is really difficult to know the direction the market really wants to go. Waiting 10-15 minutes before entering adds a great deal of clarity and makes decision making a bit easier....so avoid the opening chop.

2. Not honoring stops. Often times I will move or cancel a stop as price approaches the stop (fear of being stopped out or of taking a loss). Rather than take a small loss, I move the stop and sometimes compound the issue by averaging down (adding to a losing position). Some call this trading with scared money. I believe it is an ego issue...not wanting to be proven to be wrong because you have not lost until the position is closed. Part of this issue for me has been I was trading too volatile an instrument for my skills and account size (CL) but I no longer trade that. I trade only NQ and 6B. I am able to handle the volatility of these 2 instruments and can have an appropriate stop size based on my account size. I recognize not all trades work. It is ok to be wrong; it is not ok to stay wrong......honor your stops.

3. Inverted risk to reward. I have almost always used a larger risk than reward as my stops have been larger than my profit targets, sometimes twice as large. When my trades were profitable, I made less than when I was wrong on a trade (this contributes heavily to point number 2 above). On a daily basis, my daily loss limit has been larger than my daily profit goal. Both of these result in a sure draw down of an account. I have had very high winning percentages in trades and in profitable days, but the losers have just overwhelmed the winners. This leads to a vicious circle. After a loss, you want to start winning again, so you take what profits you can get, cutting winning trades too soon. You can have a series of those but then comes a loser. If you have a losing day, it can take several days to recover. This money draining cycle must be broken......profit targets must be greater than stops.....

I am focusing on these 3 issues. I intend to only journal about those 3 things as I see those as my stumbling blocks.....