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I got a little reminder about nuances, timing and my old friend denial today. Here’s an intraday chart of the Qs with 5-minute bars:

Just this morning before the market opened (see previous post), I said the following:

if the Qs gap down, then immediately begin to rise, you could anticipate a spike at 10:00EST, and short the downward break of the highest 10min or 15min bar, with its top as a stop.

Had I simply followed Da Rules and traded what was actually there, I’d have had a clear setup to go long against the 10:00EST spike, which was downward. Instead, I got obsessed with the idea of going short, and hung around to see what I wished, instead of what was there. Sneaky, insidious Denial. Argh. Ok, that makes the 837th time I’ve learned that lesson, give or take.

I ended up going short off of the 10:30 bar, which is to say, I ignored the signals the market gave me. A rise from the opening to 10:00 would have been a perfect short. But the stock fell for that first 30 minutes. At 10:30, I caught what was the exhaustion of a 30-minute uptrend, not a fade, and the subsequent sideways action eventually took me out. Eventually, slowly and agonizingly. Those words themselves can be a good sign that you’re pointed in the wrong direction. And no amount of hope can override that.

Cheers. I’ve gotta get out my little notebook and underline a couple of rules… again.