At least if you had been seeking alpha, you didn't get it with my decisions to ‘off' XOM and INTC at the close Friday. For now, anyway.

But, I never claim to be perfect: I just like to take credit more times than not. Who doesn't?

Also, I like to say that whenever I am wrong on the numbers, I happen to be right mentally. You see; the first Cara Rule of Trading is to feel comfortable. And I did give my reasons for not wanting to hold onto XOM and INTC over the weekend.

Besides, I can also point to an ability to lock in profits on Intra-Week and Intra-Month Trading. ;-)

The point to this article is that if you are comparing your performance to the Dow, SP500 or Nasdaq indexes, for every trade you put on you ought to be looking at your alpha. If you are consistently running above the index, your portfolio performance is going to show it.

But if you find your trades running below the index lines on these charts too often, then you ought to be spending more time figuring out why you put on those trades.