11/14/11: Trade results: 4 trades, $122.50 loss. This is what happens when you don't follow your rules

Hey everyone, I had 4 trades today and ended with a loss of $122.50. Today is an example of what happens when you don't follow your rules. These are the issues I had today:

- Micro analyzed the charts
- Did not put in the time this morning to determine the price structure
- When I realized the price structure, I kept wanting to trade against what I was seeing.. Amateur mistake
- Traded against the trend
- Tried to pick reversal points
- Participated when the market was in a non-trading environment, after I "missed" the sell-off over night
- Noticed buyer failure, but still forced the long trade
- DID NOT FOLLOW MY SYSTEM

If you looked at the charts and news this morning, you would have seen that both were short. My system says I should only have short trades then. Instead, I had 3 longs trades, 1 short trade; completely against my system.

I have made a list of things to read over to prevent a day like today from happening again.
- Analyze the bigger picture, trade in that direction
- Take a set amount of time out of your morning to do a thorough analysis, start a rountine
- Develop a trading plan of attach for each type of price structure
- The trend is your friend
- Only pick a top or bottom after your reversal pattern setup, still have a tight stop
- Recognize and note buyer and seller failure on the charts, it tells you a lot!
- Determine trading and non-trading environments. Develop a way to let profits run in the trading environment and avoid trading in the non-trading environment.