I read officially that we are in bear market territory, this is where the markets have fallen 20% from their highs… the state of the economy is not looking good and the financial sector especially is taking a bashing.

However, I took a few scalp trades today… I am having some real problems holding trades which is my biggest weakness in the markets… trading psychology plays a huge part and I am letting myself down when the markets are going my way.. I feel inclined to take a profit which then of course takes me out of the trade and out of the way of opportunity.

Anyway, my first trade was a short at 11313, the stochastics looked perfect for a short setup and the market had hit a short term high. The support line as you can see in the chart was the first exit point and I took profit here. I went double my initial stake as it looked like a good trade and I made the equivalent of +28 (+14 points x2)

I then placed another short as the market bounced off the support line and headed lower.. I wasn’t sure about this trade so much at this stage as the stochastics were already very low and I went in normal stake, short at 11295 and got stopped at 11304 for -9.

The last trade was a short once again, x2 stake at 11291 and I closed out at the previous short term low for +26 (+13 points x2)

My total points weren’t that high but I leveraged my profit.. however, it still wasn’t a great result in retrospect as I could have left my short in at 11313 and the market now is at 11240, which would have been 73 points. At my x2 stakes, I could have make 146 points!! Sigh…..

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