Many updates today

Trading Position  - £3500

Midday

Long FTSE £40/point
Short DOW £20/point

Today is going to be a day of fire fighting and scalping around my losing positions.

I re-entered the markets last night and shorted the Dow. Of course a leaked speech from Janet Yellen with dovish news regarding tapering meant the Dow took off so I went to bed a couple of thousand down at £20 per point. It's obvious to say I should have been happy with my scalping profit and not traded for the rest of the day but I fell victim to greed. I wanted more and  paying the price, great reminder!

This morning I took a long position on the FTSE @ £20/point just before it tanked 30 points so I'm long again additional £20/point . I've been scalping around these positions but as I write this post I'm £3000 down.

Dow I'm comfortable leaving for a while. I'm sure 16'000 will be hit soon but I'm hopeful of a retrace.

Update around 3pm.

Mid session update

Janet Yellen is speaking as I write, no much different to what we were treated to yesterday. From what she's saying it doesn't appear she's too keen to taper immediately, of course she's no the only decision maker.

The DOW is slightly bullish in response to her comments and I've forced opened a long with a stop at entry level to hedge my position.

FTSE is a 6660, that's 20 points above it's low of today. My position hasn't changed much but I'm expecting movement UPWARDS after she's finished as the market digests her news.

I'd like to get my FTSE to break even so I'm only on DOW.

More later this evening. Currently I'm down £3500.

4.30pm Update

FTSE's closed and so is my FTSE trade. I decided to call time on it and 6670 for a loss of £700. At one stage it was £2000 down so I decided to take my medicine. I'm only comfortable trading one instrument at a time, lesson noted and learned, never again.

Currently £2600 down, have been as low as £3500 today. Now only one trade and one direction: DOW short.

Final update at the close.

Close of play

Dow closed around 15880 which leaves me £3300 down since my foolish decision to enter at 5pm yesterday. Such is he fine line between success and failure. I should have been perfectly content taking another £150 or so from he market but I thought I was worth more and I got what I deserved. I have no doubt I will make good money from this but the key is controlling my emotions, talking of which:

Today's Mood

I felt sick from yesterdays mistake and in an effort to make good I only succeeded in losing more. The pain and loss of money is worth it if I learn to recognise and control my emotions and not belittle a small days profit.

I've popped another £5000 as margin so I can sleep tonight. the trade is underwater and it doesn't look good but we've moved 250 points higher than yesterday and it's conceivable we could take some of that back tomorrow. It's not yet lost and I can decide to close it a any time. If we get back to 15800 tomorrow I'll give serious consideration to closing for a manageable loss.

Once this trade is consigned to history I'll go back to scalping. I've closed a few scalps today that went away from me, if I'd done that yesterday I would have los a few hundred pounds with no damage.

'til tomorrow.