Nice way to end the week P&L wise, but I still have many fundamental skills to work on. The "Gold/Mining" trade ended up working, but I didn't manage my risk. My job as a trader is to execute HIGH PROBABILITY SETUPS and MANAGE RISK. I didn't do the latter which is something I so proudly stand by every post in my journal. I'm not going to be the guy who shorts the entire market when the SPY looks like it's about to turn over, but I'll be willing to take the risk necessary to trade a good idea that gives me the right risk/reward setup. When NEM came up to the $59.25-30 area, I clearly saw selling on the tape. I didn't get out. $59.25 eventually was tested again and this time even moved lower, an easy out if you were long. I let my hope and emotion get to the best of me and as a result.... threw away $1k of open profits. I made $1100 on this idea, which should've made at least $2500. My $1700 day should've been over $2500. I can sit here and pat my back for making money, or I can critically evaluate myself against my skills and live performance. For that, I'll give myself a B-.

     Given the opportunity to trade $NEM again, I would've taken half off near the highs where the offer started holding (at the worse, when the triangle broke down - shown below). The other half would've been taken out near the VWAP when clearly sellers were taking over. Other than that, I could've prepared more thoroughly. I noted the session before that 134 on the $SPY will be important to take over, yet we opened right below it. This is a fade setup, and I failed to adapt to that at the very moment. I don't want to be hard on myself, because I did do a good job this week. However, if I ought to reach some iconic level in trading, I will not let a terrible mistake occur twice. Saturday morning, I will head into the office and learn some new technology tricks. Hopefully, it will be able to identify some good opportunities. Worth a try. As of now, I'm +$1500. Because I fell very short of my $3k goal, I'll examine my notes from this week and readjust my goals as needed for next week. #noexcuses