Paved with good intentions....

I have to confess to being a tad embarrassed at my lack of follow through on my initial intentions to keep a regular blog going. I have to conclude that I'm not ready to be a full time trader yet. And I'm certainly not a full time blogger!

What I discovered is that my other commitments have so far demanded too much time to allow me a consistent focus on the market during trading hours yet. I don't know about you but I've noticed that once my focus is broken and my attention is drawn elsewhere I find it hard to stay in tune with the 'feel' of the market. And somehow, even though I try and deny it, this 'feel' is actually extremely important to trading success.

I tell myself that the signals are the signals and I should just be able to turn back to the screen when the setups are showing up on my indicators and execute the trade. But too many times when the focus is broken I would try to execute and realize that having lost touch with the market I was on the wrong side of the trade. That's because some signal setups have to be ignored as the correct signal is actually setting up in the opposite direction on a different timeframe.

And after a few errors like this I begin to doubt the signals themselves which is far more dangerous to long term success. And all this happened because I took my fingers off the pulse of the market and tried to trade anyway. So it makes sense (for me at least) to only trade when I can sit down in front of the screen and remain focused all morning.

My wife and I run three e-commerce websites which has proved to be the main distraction from trading. I am still hoping to get these to the point where they don't demand my attention during trading hours, but I'm not quite there yet.