I had a sales meeting at work today from 8 AM (when I get to work) and it ran over time until 10:30 AM.  By the time I got out of the meeting I was so lost in the market so I didn’t really jump into anything.  Surprisingly the market rallied up today after a couple of really nasty days.  I quickly checked in on my twitter stream and some websites to see what other traders thought of the action today and the consensus was that it was suspect.  So again, I was very cautious to jump into anything.  In my opinion if something messed up your schedule for the trading day you should step away and refocus or maybe skip trading today.  The meeting definitely messed me up and I didn’t feel like I could jump into anything.

A little after 1 PM I entered VECO that was bouncing after being crushed pretty hard.  I got into the trade at $47.21 with a 300 share position.  It worked immediately which I love to see and held for a little bit.  The market then started selling off hard, it dropped, held up well and kind of chattered around for a while.  I didn’t really like the up and down action it was doing and I had another meeting at 1:30 so I sold out of my position at $47.23 for a meaningless $3 profit.  As of this writing VECO is bouncing around the $47.40 and $47.50 area so i could have had a little more profit if I had stayed into it, but I’m not too upset about 20-30 cents on a small position.  Maybe if I could hold overnight I would have stayed in it, but I don’t feel comfortable holding positions with a prop firm when I am already in the red.

This week has been a tough week for most traders with the suspect rallies and sharp sell offs so needless to say I am not going to meet my goal of being at the break even point by the end of the month.  That’s okay, but tomorrow has to be a big day for me so I don’t fall further into the hole.  Tomorrow may determine if I stay with the prop firm or go to a small account trading my own money.  I’ll keep you posted.

Daily Profit: $3 – before commissions