Random thoughts on the market action

Posted on April 11, 2008
Tags: Day Trading |

These are just random musings about the recent market action and other stuff. It’s been quite a roller coaster over the last week or two. Each day looks like either a disaster or a large windfall are about to happen. But the end result on each day, so far, has been a retracement from those relative extremes. This oscillation between almost best day ever and almost worst day ever (on different days) can wreck havoc on one’s mental wellbeing. The key in my opinion is a mix of ways of looking at things, keeping a long term view and not giving any one day too much thought and on the other hand taking it a day at a time. It’s impossible to play a perfect game in the markets but there’s also no need for that, keeping the number of mistakes low should be sufficient. Overall, conditions in the market now are not bad and there are good opportunities to make money if one keeps an open mind and a resilient spirit. It can get much worse, like the summer doldrums for example, if they materialize this year, and then we’ll all miss the current volatility. So if you live off your trading like I do then you gotta make sure you bring in some dough while things are moving and happening.
On that note, I’m back to making new equity highs every week or two which is nice. I also changed the way I withdraw money for my expenses, I moved from a monthly withdrawal to once every 3 months. Taking money out of the account isn’t a fun experience so instead of doing it monthly I take the mental hit every 3 months and then relax about it for the rest of the quarter just focusing on trading instead of the unavoidable semi-subconscious calculations throughout the month around how much I made, how much I’ll take out, how much will the account show after that etc. etc. I may be slightly obsessed about what the number in my statement is showing. Which probably isn’t a bad thing, if it’s under control.

Comments

4 Responses to “Random thoughts on the market action”

oonr7 on April 11th, 2008 3:52 am

I’m in the same boat as far as making new equity highs but it sure doesn’t feel that way and the new highs really aren’t much higher lately. Of course, it’s easy to drop down below those new highs as well. Really been up and down lately but I know the trades I’ve made this week have been spot on (all the results haven’t paid off yet). Sticking with the plan… that’s what I need to do.
eyal on April 12th, 2008 6:21 am

I know what you mean about “doesn’t feel that way”, it’s certainly not an easy market to operate in right now. I also have a similar feeling about the trades for the past couple of weeks, I don’t see how I could have traded that much better than what I actually did given my strategy style. So, we take what the market has to offer for now.
John on April 13th, 2008 10:24 pm

congrats on the new equity highs!
eyal on April 14th, 2008 2:55 pm

Thanks, it’s no longer at a high today but I’m hoping it won’t be long before we get there again :-)