Trade Journal for the week of 5/3-5/7

It's been a couple of weeks since I blogged. The market as been really fickle lately. Economic meltdown in Greece, the government going after Goldman-Sachs, and environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has caused a lot of movement in the market that often has overshadowed scheduled economic announcements. Last week I lost on a couple of trades where the market didn't react to the announcements as it normally does. This week I decided to be more conservative and to only trade on corrections after I had a chance to see how the market would initially react. I had a much better week this week. Out of the 6 announcements, I only traded 3. I won on all three and was up 3.5 points for the week. I'm only trading with 1 contract ($500) right now, but I still made $155.80 after commissions. Not bad for about an hour of trading.

Below are my 3 trades for the week.

Durable Goods, New Home Sales

This has been a slow trading week. There was an announcement on Monday, but I had to go into work early so I didn't trade. Lance won 1/2 point on that trade. There were a couple of announcements yesterday. I won on the first and lost on the second. I was down 1/2 point for the day. Lance did great and won 2.25 points (22.5%). This morning there were two more announcements. I got a point on each, so I was up 20% for the day. Lance is trading on a laptop and his battery died, so he didn't trade. Lisa tried paper trading on the New Home Sales announcement this morning and won 1.5 points on her first trade!

Unemployment Claims, Philly Fed Business Index

I made some stupid mistakes on the Unemployment Rate trade at 6:30. I got in late, at the bottom of the movement. I won 1/4 point and then tried to play the correction. I accidentally got in the wrong direction...twice and lost 1/2 point. When I finally figured things out, I got back into a trade and won 1/4 point. I ended up breaking even on that trade, before commissions. At 8:00 was Philly Fed Business Index. I made 1.25 points on that one, which I am happy about. I'm up for the week and gaining confidence. Lance won 1/2 point this morning.

The P&L numbers below are cummulative, so I lost $19.20 on the first trade and won $52.90 on the second, for a net profit of $33.70 for the day.

Consumer Price Index, Retail Sales

All numbers came in better than expected and the market move upward. I made 3/4 points overall on the initial movement and correction. I thought there would be a bigger movement based on the numbers, but I'm happy with a win.

Econonomic Optimism

I was on vacation and then sick, so it's been about a week and a half since I traded. It's good to be back. There was a low impact announcement this morning with very little impact on the market. The news was good, so I got in long. The market wasn't really moving, so I got out at break even. The market dropped, so I expected a similar movement trade. I got in long again, and again there wasn't much movement so I got out with 1/4 point. Had I stayed in another minute I could have squeezed out 1/2 to 3/4 points. Lance was more aggressive and patient than me and made 1-1/2 points this morning.