Day Trading Results 9-15-2008 through 9-19-2008

I need to go out and buy a t-shirt which says "I survived the banking debacle". Many hard working Americans lost a good chunk of their retirement through the course of this week. For those poor souls who worked for Lehman Brothers, my heart goes out to you and your families. As a day trader, the past week was the most challenging trading environment I have ever seen. First off, the majority of the high volume stocks were up or down 15% or more everyday of the week. This kind of volatility made it tough to identify low risk setups, because if you are wrong on your entry, you could take a 5% hit in a matter of minutes. So, I found myself scanning the market and not finding much worth trading and the ones I did find, my hand would shake prior to the entry, while I was in the trade, and another 5 minutes after I closed the position. It got to the point by Wednesday morning I had no desire to trade. It hit me that I had never seen this type of action before and the more I try to actively trade it, at some point the market is going to give me more vivid memories of this week, other than the news headlines. Needless to say, I was able to finish up $655.30 for the week. The real question is whether or not this nonsense of not being able to short bank stocks is just setting us up for a steeper decline in the near future.

Day Trading Results 9-15-2008 through 9-19-2008