First sucked but was $10 profit. Basically I got the break right but didn't take profits and then price reversed and I barely got out at a profit. Happens all the time. Well, actually I did try to take profit but I was a bit tired and put in the wrong order! And by time I had that straightened out the move had already occurred.
Second was a confused attempt at getting an early breakout...and then when this didn't materialize, I stayed in for a hoped-for partial rise before breakout. Delusional! Should have gotten out when it didn't work for say a $20 loss. Really, I need to be a bit better about taking losses. Need to define what I expect to happen...or what should happen, and all the possibilities when taking a trade so I can respond appropriately to price action. And then since I had my stop in the center of the range I got stopped out. Market did rebound nicely though and the long would have been profitable, but the entry was extremely poor. So I did a lot better with the entry on the next trade (gold) and market just didn't cooperate that time. Could have paid more attention to the correlation though...but at same time I did not have live Dow prices. Really need to get another futures account even though I don't feel like it!
1 gold trade (just because it had a nice consolidation period. (-$20):
Had very good entry, but only 1 contract. Originally $40 of risk. After price rebounded I moved stop to $20 risk (very good position) but then it did not follow the out of line move like I was expecting and stopped me out. I can say the entry and stop readjustment were ABSOLUTELY PERFECT for the trade and situation. However, having 2 contracts would have allowed me to immediately take profit and still hold for the long haul (and gotten stopped out) and in this particular case, order reversal with 2 contracts (always a risky business of course) would have been warranted, but it is difficult to tell for sure sometimes. Those were the only two modifications I can suggest.
It is interesting to note the Dow and Gold have been correlated recently. The Dow had been showing ample weakness, I saw this as a potential warning but was hoping gold would be able to be UN-correlated. No such luck. Instead of hope, I need to avoid these types of risk. Instead of minimize: identify and avoid. It just isn't worth the loss!
I also didn't notice the dollar rallying. Perhaps need to pay more attention to other factors, it would improve trading results substantially methinks.
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