Week In Review

All things considered, it was a good week. I don't have all my records at home, some are at work, but I believe I'm right at breakeven for the year and neutral for the week. That's not bad considering all the chopping around the averages have done. My account is mostly damaged from the unrealized losses category a la MVIS. My closed positions have been on the plus side every week, as they were this week. Unfortunately the gains on my closed positions are equaling my losses in MVIS. As always, this week I sold some positions too early: NIHD and SPIL. Had I held NIHD through the week, my gains would have been much greater.

I have put a screen shot from Excel to show the week's transactions. The first five columns represent the buy (or sell short), and the second five columns represent the closed position where a negative share price denotes a short sell.

It is clear from this spreadsheet that I have to find a way to get my winners to be significantly larger than my losers. The only way I know how to do that is to let the winners run longer. My losers are being kept to small amounts, usually averaging ~1% (which is typically between $100-$200.) A $200.00 loss is only .002% of my capital. As I've said before, I always sell too early. I am going to begin to focus on working on whatever psychology I need to hold my winners longer.

My wife and I spent the better part of the weekend readying our house to be shown, as it is now on the market. We made an offer Saturday on a house we really like, but due to it being listed incorrectly and being owned by a relocation company and not an individual the deal may fall through or need to be re-negotiated. With our living situation close to being in limbo, I am working hard to stay grounded with my trading. The added stress of selling a house, buying another, and moving may make it difficult to make focused trades. I want to be sure to stick with a plan and not trade frantically and haphazardly. If the buying and selling of the houses becomes too much, I will have to be honest with myself and look at taking some time off.