Trading Position - £4600 read on for the day's events as they happened
I'm writing this opening sentence a few minutes after the DOW has closed. Below you'll see my trading day as it happened.
Welcome to Monday and a new trading week, time now is 1pm GMT.
I watched attentively as pre-market opened at 11pm last night and decided to take action. At £50 a point short I could margin out with an overnight rise of just 30 points so couldn't risk leaving it. I waited for a small retrace and 'force opened' a £25 a point long.
This morning by 9pm I saw the price had faded to 15933 so I waited a few minutes to see if it looked likely to drop further, it didn't. At that moment I decided to close the second £25 short I had opened for a loss of a few hundred pounds, I'm pleased I did.
Currently I'm £25 long and £25 short. I've bought myself some time and it's a good thing I acted decisively as the DOW rocketed through 16'000 to a premarket high of 16015 at midday. Had I not acted I would have margined out.
I'm now in a position to watch the markets and scalp. I have to view my outstanding trades in a longer time frame and I'm expecting to run them for the majority if not all of this week. There's the minutes from the last Fed meeting released Wednesday and no doubt analysts will read and draw conclusions which they'll share with traders and there's a possibility it could move the markets. If so I may be able to close out but we'll see.
Currently my losing position stands at £5700 so a little improvement from Friday's close.
Mid session update this afternoon.
3pm Update
Dow has a high so far today of 16028 although it's faded slightly to 15990 as I write. I've been scalping around my positions, so far £130 better off, let's see what opportunities the afternoon brings.
Amusing 5pm Update
I've forgotten to click the force open button when making a long trade so have lost £800 from my funds, I haven't made that mistake for a long time and hope to never make it again.
Close of play Update
Funny I should mention about forgetting to click force open, I did it again 30 minutes before close! I've lost my entire £4000 short position. I was just about to pick up the phone to their dealing desk to explain my error (in the past they've reinstated my position on hearing it was an error, 1st class people!) when I a wave of relief swept over me. Rather than hold onto a losing position and let it cloud my trading I'm happy to have kissed it goodbye. Go on, off with you...you lousy losing position you.
As it happens by not having anything other than my open trade I managed to recover more. I was long from 16'000 £22 a point and thanks to comments made by someone appearing on CNBC (I think it was Carl Ichan) the Dow dropped 60 points in a few minutes. After making my faux pas I rode the slow retrace higher for 20 odd points before closing out for a loss.
My mood today
I felt good today, thanks to catching up with my day job over the weekend I was ready to trade. I knew I'd made a mistake last week that could prove costly but I felt confident enough to trade my account back and beyond what it was. I'm getting used to playing with £20 a point, your position moves fast, especially in a volatile market like the DOW and it's possible to win (and of course lose) quickly.
I end the day £950 better than when I started and really that's all that matters. I fucked up by not clicking 'force open' but it's actually liberated me from a losing position. Tomorrow I can scalp and each trade will have a maximum £300 stop loss.
'till tomorrow
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