Some days you have to ask yourself, how could I be so dumb? It happens and it shouldn't. The Dow rose 61 points today on lighter volume. Advance/declines were 2 to 1 positive. My order for puts that I left overnight got filled right away. It was a loser from the start and by far my worst trade in quite a while. What happened? The summation index was about to go positive. The downtrend line had been broken to the upside on good volume. Advance/declines had turned to the positive. And I bought puts? Even when I knew that I shouldn't have, I did. And now you see that the enemy is in the mirror. Stupidest trade to date. With only 2 days to go no less. I really don't know what to say. After all the years of trading I still do mindless things. Greed, I suppose. It was a 70% loss. It is the first trade of the year that never had a chance. I'm tired of going back to the drawing board. Mentally I just don't have it at the moment. I will continue the work but I will have to get my head back into the discipline required to have success. It isn't easy. You lose confidence in yourself. That is never good. Especially after this failure. I will move on but I'm going to have to get cautious and watch out for myself. A break is in order. I don't know what else to do. I do have an idea on gold but will have to wait for it to get back to the trendline. But really, just where do I go from here? Continue this foolish pattern of no brain trading? What happened to the discipline? Perhaps this poor outing is a wake-up call to get serious. The markets are there providing plenty of opportunities. I'm just not up to the task right now. I'm going to have to take a few steps back and analyze just what is going on here. To do that trade in the face of conflicting data was just plain wrong. There is no point in putting in the time to do the work if you're not going to listen to it. Again I am reminded about just how hard it is to be a success in this field. It isn't for most but it is my calling. I'll need to make some changes and get ready to do battle with myself again. There is no hiding from the fact that changes have to be made. A trade like this is truly ridiculous. I can only place the blame on myself, move on, try to do better the next time and forget it...