A Misstep

I wanted to talk about my first trade with the NQ today. I slipped up and fell for a solid $40-50 loss right off the bat. Frustratingly, the trade was not supposed to (in my mind) be executed! But I guess I haven't used the IB trading software enough yet. I put in an order to sell at 1249 so it sold right off the bat, as the price was higher than 1249 (to a computer, logically it's better to sell higher...no?). Well, the reason I set my entry at 1249 was because that entry would have been below the low of the day and entering the gap up.

I figured that if it broke down to that level (which never happened) it would continue and possibly fill its gap. I got doubly burned because I was entered at an area that would never be retraced. Not to mention the NASDAQ (like I mentioned in my previous post) does not rely as heavily as the S&P on the financials.

I need to enter limit orders...not stop orders (or stop limits?), which is what I think the standard is set to at the moment.

Now if that were the only mistake I made today in the NQ...