Trading in the zone - Part 1

Dear readers, most of the days the market treats us like crap. It entices us, lures us and just when the goal seems close, takes it all away from us. It sits back and mocks us while we make out futile attempts to conquer it. And dont even get me started on the perverse humor of the market Gods! They take special pleasure in kicking us when we are down and beaten. And when we are about to give up in frustration, they fling a few pennies at us, laugh at seeing us invigorated and then the cycle starts again....But there are days dear readers, yes there are these days, when we own the markets. When we are always two steps ahead of the markets. I admit that these days are far too rare, but there are these days when we not only dodge everything the market Gods throw at us but actually return triumphant. And the key is it all happens effortlessly, we dont need any indicators or news. In fact, on these days, we dont even need any charts. Trading seems the easiest things in the world. And on these far too special and far too few days, we, my dear readers, are trading in the zone.

I had such a day today. And as I said earlier, these days are far too few, so I feel obliged to share my experiences with you readers. Its amazing actually how such a day happened during a time in my trading cycle when I was down on confidence. The regular readers of this blog know that I am still recovering from some stupid trading mistakes I made a couple of weeks ago. In fact, on account of having one of those incredibly busy weeks at work, I hadn't traded much this week. 

I started looking at the pre market pretty much at its open. I knew I would have more time for the markets today than earlier this week. By around 8:15, I had decided what my strategy for the day would be. I was seeing too much gloom and doom in the blogopshere and twitter. Everybody was kinda sitting back and waiting for MA(200) which still lay a fair distance away. All this made me wanna get long. But, I decided I was not going to try and pick the bottom. I was not going to play the volatile momentum stocks I usually play. I was going to buy quality stocks like GMCR and CREE at their support and give them room to run. I wrote a quick post about my strategy for the day here. All this was decided and done a few minutes before the job reports was out and the futures were around 80 points down.

Then came the job reports and the futures reversed and even turned positive, if I remember correctly. I decided to not chase these stocks as I didnt think we were done selling, the reasons for which I had outlined in the daily review yesterday. I was going to be patient and wait for my stocks at their support. I was very confident that we were going down no matter how positive we began. As I didn't want anyone following me to get hurt, I quickly added an update to my previous post saying I wouldn't be chasing these stocks and tweeted about it.

Then came 9:30 and the action began. The early action was way too choppy. Normally, I would have gone in but today, specially after not trading much throughout the week, I was surprisingly patient, without even trying. And that gave me my biggest confidence boost. I had thought a big win would take me out of my slump but it was actually not trading at all that got me out of my trading slump. When I finally decided to enter the markets, I did so with my biggest position in over two weeks.

Since it is Friday night, I must leave you here dear readers. But I promise to be back and complete my narrative tomorrow. Take care and enjoy the weekend. Because come Monday, we must fight again.