Psychology

Losses are inevitable for traders. The Stockbandit is writing about it today.
I find it very usefull to read about psychology and trading at Steenbergers blog. Innerworth, I mentioned it before, it's very useful stuff to read everyday and to remember when trading.

Markets further down today. Difficult for the bulls at the moment, though not closuing at the low of the day. You might expect some recovery from here. The VIX for the 7th day in a row up, see chart below, and far away from the 200 SMA.

daytrading
FDAX

Markets down.

The charts don't look good to me tonight.

daytrading
FDAX

Interactivebrokers and filling orders

Interactive brokers is one of the worlds leading brokers for electronically providing data to traders. It is cheap, vey reliable, outstanding resources and a wide productrange to almaost all markets in the world.

A minus allways was and is that IB doesnot provide historically data: you have manage that by yourself. Since a while they provide a backfill up to 100 days for most of their products which is a huge advancement.
Filling orders never have been a problem. I don't have experience with the EUR/dollar future. Reading some forums about FOREX trading learns you orderfilling may be a problem for FOREX traders.

Somebody wrote me a mail this morning about orderfilling with IB on the FDAX. He is currently trading with 4 contracts and he has the suspicion the filling is not allways done simultaneously. Now this would be very strange and a very negative thing for IB because I can't imagine 4 contracts to be that much on the FDAX market. Or is there some bias to smaller inverstors? I'll try to explore this matter a bit further. >>

daytrading
FDAX

Frustations

Frustations are a regular business for traders. Yesterday I bought a pocket PC and also tried to switch my wired network to a wireless one. I could manage a wired connection to my PC's but a wireless connection to my new pocket PC is not possible for the moment. It's a frustating effort, you feel sometimes like a programmer as a trader.
Globetrader: describes another kind of frustation: despite the good work he is doing he got not many answers for his questions. You could say he makes a mistake to presume that his interests and questions are that of others too but clearly he feels frustated by it.
Innerworth, a free registrationgave an advice for those feeling out of control:

A more adaptive approach is to realize that it's impossible to be thoroughly competent, adequate, and achieving all the time. Sometimes, you just cannot trade perfectly. You can't control all circumstances. When things go wrong, practice radical acceptance: "I can't control everything. I am going to accept the cards that fate has dealt me today. I'm going to accept what I cannot change, and be grateful that matters aren't even worse." Rather than have unrealistic expectations of success, it's wise to approach trading with a healthy sense of skepticism. Things may go wrong, and that's all right. If you anticipate problems, and actually expect them, you won't be bothered when things go wrong. Try it. It really works.

SFO Magazine of oktober adresses some of the frustations and problems occuring with daytrading. The main article is asking if a daytrader is rewarded enough for the efforts he has to make. Other interesting articles are related:
Your order entry is ready,
SO, you want to Day Trade SPOT FX? THINK AGAIN>

daytrading
FDAX