12/15 Daily Summary

Continue to monitor the price action charts for the RUT condor, no need to do anything. Have updated contingent orders for both RUT and MNX trades.

2010 Goal: Leave the Market Alone

Yes, this may seem a very strange goal for a trader, so let me further explain: The concept of leaving the market alone is simply avoiding the Obssessive-Compulsive Behaviour of checking price action every minute through the day.

I am trading options using non-directional Income strategies, this mean I'm not an active intra-day trader, my positions run through 2 to 3 weeks and are defined in a way that they can be managed using contingent orders on a daily basis.

Brett Steenbarger says in his "Power and Powerlessness in Trading" posting: "Real power is being able to walk away from the screen while a position is working itself out."

Some of my best trades this year, both financially and emotionally speaking, were the ones I was able to detach from the intra-day "noise" and simply trade the positions by using contingent orders and a trading plan.

Evaluating the positions by end of day instead of during the intra-day is the way to go for me. Therefore, this will be one of my performance goals for 2010.

2010 Planning: Setting Performance Goals

This posting starts my planning and preparation for 2010. I've been reviewing my trading journals from 2 years ago till now, with the purpose of refining and documenting my goals and objectives with the trading business.


My first order of business is to establish a few Performance Goals for 2010, see this posting on "Goal Setting for Traders: What Works" for more details on Performance Goals.