April was a bad month for me. There were several loosing trades in the month and very little winners. As a result when most portfolios would have made money I lost 2% during the month. AMZN, SBUX were the biggest deal breakers. I can't think of any winner really apart from PM but that is also languishing really. INTC did well though but I am already deeply in red with the stock so it's just wiping out some of the red from my account no green there either.. Here's the account performance metric

This new month on month performance chart should help visualize how we are doing against the market.

The biggest mistake that I think I did in April was not booking the profits when they were available on the table. Or worse letting the winning position turning into a loosing one by just holding on. I simply do not have any exit strategy and I still do not. But I am making a rule which I think should help me limit such silly losses.

Do not let a winning position turn into losses

Now I define winning position as a green tick of more than 4%. As soon as I see my position with a rise of 4-5% I will put a stop order at my cost price or decide to book profits. If I hold on and say the stock goes up to 8% the stop will move to cost + 4% price tick. This will only apply to trading positions.

The other rule I think I need is to time the entry on a short term timeframe or when the stochastic/bollinger band reading is at oversold levels on daily. This can mean missing out on some good trades but this will also mean a possibility of an immediate bounce of at least a couple of percentage points. This along with above rule *should* make losing money a little difficult for me. But you never know..

You might want to read..
Account Status and open positions
Rules of my Game