It’s been a while since I posted, I’ve had a lot going on. Our son was born at the end of December and so that kept us very busy in January. I was very fortunate that my client didn’t renew my contract for 2013 and that gave me extra family time.
Trading wise, things weren’t so good. I had done well Oct – Dec trading just the last 2 hours. My main “setup” was just to enter on a pullback and look for a new high or low into the close. And it worked well. I thought if I could make x pts in 2 hours/day then if I traded 8-10 hours/day I could make 4x. I was a bit naïf but it was worth a shot. I thought if it worked then maybe I could take more time off from consulting and spend it with the family. But that wasn’t to be. I ended up +2 pts for January and if we count commissions I was pretty much zero. Sometimes less is more.
The first challenge was trading the European session, which I had not traded in over 6 months. There was just no volatility in ES, as I pointed out in a blog post that month. Then in the US morning, I wasn’t sure how to handle the open. Actually I was lost. I had been used to seeing how the morning & lunch periods played out and use that as my guide for the last 2 hours. Trading the open was like flying blind. And I got chopped up. And I couldn’t trade the last 2 hours because we were very busy taking care of the kids & baby, and going to bed early so we could get up every 3 hours all night.
At the end of January I was convinced that I could do much better consulting and started interviewing. I was fortunate to get two offers and picked a system architect assignment for a major construction company. I started mid-February. My trading for the first half of February was slightly negative. I was losing confidence and was even skipping trading to spend more time with family (while it lasted).
When I started my new job I didn’t trade since I was already very occupied. It was nice to take a few weeks off. I didn’t even have my charts running. I intended to trade again last week but our 2 month old son got really sick with respiratory infection and had to go to the hospital. He was in intensive care all day Wednesday and Thursday and that really changed my perspective on things. Suddenly nothing else was important. We spoke to other parents whose kids were in intensive care too. There was a girl in a coma and a 6 month old boy who had meningitis. They had the boy asleep until Sunday (this was Wednesday) and his mom said they wouldn’t know if he had brain damage until they woke him up. Wow, our little boy only had a lung infection. That really put things into perspective. And family time became a lot more important to me. I was very thankful for everything we have.
So last week made 3 weeks on the new job and 3 weeks without trading. My goal now is to get back into the last 2 hour trading mentality. I will do my levels when I get home, set audio/email alerts, and spend time with the family. If I get an alert I’ll come to my PC and look for an entry. And if I miss it, no big deal. Hopefully I’ll catch a few winners. I’ll let you know how it goes.
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