It’s trades like MXC that really make my blood boil. While PDO was a near perfect trade—even though I profited 30 cents/share, it’s now down $1.25ish just 1 day later (gotta love not being willing to risk it while traveling!)—as I posted, I never meant to enter MXC at all so this morning I just played it safe—as usual, lately—covering at the open at $10.50. Sure, now it’s already dropped down to $9.25 and this could be the ultimate top, but also at the open, somebody bought 10k at $10.80 and there was no telling if a big squeeze would be on or not and since it’s definitely not an ideal trade, I wasn’t about to double up.
Neither my poor exit—in hindsight—nor the $260ish loss pain me—it’s the fact that I was even in this in the first place that’s gonna sting for a while (even though by now I’ve learned stupid mistakes will happen). Cuz as you guys know, my niche strategy is always under the microscope so I take pride in reaching in-your-face-suckas-type milestones like 50% returns in 6 months when the market as a whole is down 15%. Now, this trade I’d never in a million years advocate ruins that pretty number—putting me up only 48%–and I’m tempted to try another trade sometime in the next 2 days so I can get back to my rightful milestone.
And that’s the exact wrong way to think!
As tough as it is, traders gotta ignore milestones and goals—the stocks we trade don’t care, only our egos do. Sure, I might find a quick trade to put me back over the hump in time, but considering I’m still traveling, it wouldn’t be an ideal trade, so I’m gonna be disciplined and wait for a worthy trade to pop up—whether it’s today, tomorrow or 2 weeks from now, cuz that’s the only real way to trade your way to 50%+ type returns…
