The market is still hanging out in the clouds today pricewise so far.
I didn't close any positions this morning, but I picked up two new stock positions and one new options position. The health sector is coming into play today.
For those who follow my Watch List, you'll notice that PAYX is a live trade I made but it didn't come from my watch list. That's because as of the end of the day yesterday, it was nowhere near the moving average line. But then there was news overnight that caused it to fall way down and trigger an entry. It's rare that this happens. The large majority of times my live trades come right off my watch list.
A number of people checked in with me yesterday and talked about how they wished we had more skin in the game for yesterday's big gains. Either more stock trades open or more futures trades open or both. I had the same thought flicker through my mind a few times yesterday too. And the resulting feeling was one of "missing out".
Isn't it interesting how for many of us there is a part of our brains that is never satisfied and always wants more. Here I am with an account that's gone up about 20% in closed value over the last 2-3 weeks, and yet a part of me was concerned about not getting even more rather than relishing in the recent success.
That's what I love about my trading approach. Since it's so rules-based, it gives me tons of opportunity to practice mindfulness. I know that I'm sticking to these back-tested trading rules no matter what, so for me any thoughts or emotions that come up along the way don't have an impact on my trading decisions and therefore can be used as "material" for practicing mindfulness. I can treat the thoughts and emotions almost like a show, where I can wait with curiosity to see what my mind will come up with next. It allows me to detach to some degree from those thoughts and emotions.