Toight as a tiger  is how I’m trading again. It’s also how I used to play poker , tight aggressive. Don’t know why I stopped, but I think I’ve regained my mojo. Back to being the Dan Harrington of trading. Back to opening only with premium hands (good trade setups), folding or raising (honoring stops or adding in size as set up confirms) and playing my game. Gone are chasing hands (stocks that have run too far), listening to table talk ( reading crap on Twitter) and playing too many hands ( too many positions).

I liken much of the trading I’ve followed this year on Twitter and various chatrooms to the young loose aggressive poker players that have dominated the scene these last few years and thought I had to be like them. It just doesn’t work for me. After evaluating most of my trades this year, it was easy to see where I lost money and where I made money. There’s entirely too much white noise between the pennies in stocks, option strike prices in as little as .50 cent increments and the social media distortion for me that I needed to step back and  go back to my trading roots. I realized I didn’t need to build a better mousetrap because of technological changes, I just needed to make a few slight adjustments. When you’re playing poker you have to adjust your style to the table in the moment.  Sometimes it may be a drastic change that is really out of your comfort zone. For example , if you are known as a rock and the table is full of hyper loose players, they can shake you off your hand easily  or you can’t get action when you need it like when you have the nuts.  In trading, you have the luxury of not having to play every stock and setup. Yet I felt I was missing out by trying to fit in and be as active as everybody else.

My results have improved drastically by trading a smaller universe of stocks and by sticking to the old school names that are liquid enough not to be manipulated by the Twitter mafia which specializes in low float shit or whatever is the pump of the day . Of course now I have to fight off the machines instead. Damn you HFT !