Thursday, April 19, 2007

Good Morning World

I sold everything this morning except for MVIS.

At least this time I used limit orders and was able to get out at decent prices. I have no doubt that this was not a smart move, and if had waited until later today, I could have gotten better prices.

If I did not have a full-time job, and did not have to trade from work, I would play this differently. I should be clear that the Virginia Tech tragedy affects the line of work I'm in. The amount of stress I've been experiencing at work recently has been huge. Couple this stress with the stress of running money, and I'm about at my limit. Something had to give, and so it was my account that paid the price. I've got to get my professional life straight before I be successful at trading in the near-term. I trust that those of you trying to trade while working understand where I'm coming from here.

The good news is that I'm still up about 5K for the year, which is enough to cash out and get my son the new playground set that he wants, and buy my wife various and sundry works of art and furniture for our new house.

I'll be back later today to update the Stockalicious widget and post prices for my sells.

Good luck out there today. May the market bring you what you are looking for.

15 comments:

ShortDaBull said...

ok now i'm curious, what line of work are you in?

Dinosaur Trader said...

I don't like the way this sounds, TWW.

-DT

Jeff said...

Threat / risk assessment is one of my duties.

DT- everything is ok here. I just have to focus on work here for a few days. I'll still be trading, I'm sure, just needed a short break.

nodoodahs said...

Yeah, definitely those who trade while working have different coping needs for the market ... best and hope to see you trading again soon!

Anonymous said...

I feel for you, but this is some really bad trading. You need to learn to sit on your hands some times.

Jeff said...

Hey grey, I agree with you 100%. It is something I am aware of and constantly working to improve.

ShortDaBull said...

actually i don't think selling out to start from a clean slate is bad trading at all.

If you're not feeling it and aren't focused, it's good that you realized this and took measures to prevent further losses and protected the gains you had from the last month.

don't worry about missing a cents here and there.

Ragin' Cajun said...

Shortdabull,

I agree with you 100%!

ShortDaBull said...

cajun, I love you, want to be my homosexual lover?

Anonymous said...

Point is, if he had waited, the losses wouldn't have been nearly as bad. Probably lost $3000 when he could only be down half that.

ShortDaBull said...

hindsight is 20/20, it could have easily been $4500. If you aren't focused, get emotional or don't have time to trade, you get out and regroup.

Anonymous said...

Still, my point is, it doesn't pay to panic.

ShortDaBull said...

i agree.

although I don't he did panic. I think he made up his mind before the market opened (like last night) that he wanted out because he didn't have time nor did he want to trade.

i may be wrong.

downtowntrader said...

Hey Wood, I know what it's like to have your workload interfere with trading and I know what it's like to need a break. Good Luck and hopefully we see you back sooner rather then later.


Joey

nodoodahs said...

Here's the trade-off (pun intended). Making a decision to sell the night before is fine and dandy, I've done it, but when you can see the market is due to gap down (per futures premarket), the ODDS are that you'll get a better price to sell later in the day.

Now, every once in a while you get a Feb 27th and the gap down keeps going down, and makes you look like an idiot for waiting, but the ODDS are, gap down, wait to sell.

The rub is, if you're trading and working and can't watch the market, HOW DO YOU SELL MID-MORNING? Get the point? So maybe selling into the occasional faded gap is just one of the prices we pay for being semi-active traders that can't watch the market every minute.