barely green

Had a half decent green day. Then I hacked for more. Then lost it and made it back. Should have just cut and run with my basic green day and not spent my mental powers on it all afternoon. 

This pennant or whatever is going on up here is annoying!

backed the wrong horse

 Two nice setups today: TTD and ADI. Both big gaps on earnings, all the beautiful levels, etc. Both too spready to trade 🚩

TTD I thought I did ok, got pltgt. Raised the stop too tight and if I would have given it a little more room and resolved to hold for price targets I could have really raked it in. fomo.

ADI, first try stopped for too-big loss (what to do? spready option, still have to use stops... as I well know). Reversed right away and I got back in. Raked in 2 good partials and then it chopped and chopped. I took another partial. Then I rode the last stupid piece for "hard work" all day long (actually, I was away but checked and raised my stop every so often). 

Meanwhile, while I'm sweating ADI, TTD is launching without me. I backed the wrong horse today! Still got a small green (shoulda' been bigger green)

how many ways to trade wrong

LESSON! I have a consistently profitable system. When I trade like clockwork I rake it in. When I get "too smart" I get whacked. 

Friday I had a losing day, also being "too smart". This is a cycle I need to break. It feels like I need to make it back right away. But it is futile to fight a market that is not conducive to my system. I can't make MY money if I don't get MY setups. 

So today I preempted on GOOGL and didn't take +10% when I had it, a few times, and then going to a loss. 

TSLA was a sort of desperation trade. 

All serves only to f* my mentality even worse. 

That's what should be the most dear to me, even more than 1 day's gains or losses. I need to protect my psychological capital. I improve my mentality by following my rules and raking in my corresponding gains. 

And probably I should get back to reading The Mental Game of Trading book. Am I self-sabotoging? Am I working with an inflated ego?