Thoughts
I am late by 1 day as I have been busy with work, and i have decided to scale down on the monitoring and scanning for opportunities, however I do not feel like i have exposed myself to greater risks nor felt the urge to constantly check the markets. I am sure that this has indeed reduced my general stress level, and also prevented me from trading impulsively.
I would like to share the things that helped me during this period :)
Make it easier to check against your initial trade idea and plan. Previously, i would do a screen cap of the counters i entered and then compare it against the live charts. However there was a flaw in this way of doing things, which was my varying "assessment" each time i reviewed.Subsequently, I learnt that investingnotes has this saving layout option on the desktop and on the mobile. So i did my TA and anticipated price movement on my desktop, saved it and then retrieved it at certain times of the day ( 11am and 4.30pm) to check if there were gross deviation. For those with gross deviations in negative way, once it hit my stop loss point, i just exited the counter. While for those that deviated in a positive manner, i would relook at it at the end of the day.
Less noise, less temptation. I follow a few traders on facebook and also look at the trading ideas on investing notes. Many times when some "popular" user post about a rocketing counter, i will investigate further with my own set of TA, and somehow if one of the few criteria pass, i would normally "loosen" my standard and likely to enter the counter. Reflecting on this, and checking out those counters i entered on a "hot tip" seems like my biased decision always seem to be loss-making. I won't blame these users, because i am sure they have convinced themselves of their tradeplans, but i do wonder if i was less exposed to these user, would i reduce my tendency to trade counters which would otherwise not pass my personal criteria. Definitely this period of not checking social media has helped me not commit to trades recklessly.
Scaling down on volatility. I am now 33% vested in equities of my availble funds ( i'm setting aside 20% for emergencies) so i have another 50% resting as my war chest. I have reduced my exposure as leading up to my busy period, I could see how a few bids could affect my total assets (i.e. Accordia Golf Trust), and hence my mood for the day. Besides counters which my positions were "too big", i also cut my position in speculative counters (as mentioned in earlier posts 1 & 2) to prevent myself from getting panic in the case of a negative price movement. Overall, the volatility of my counter is small now, maybe a change of less than $400? That is something i could deal with indeed.
Conclusion
I'm sure i have lost out in opportunities by not actively scanning the market, however i am pretty sure that this had prevented impulsive trades. And with myself being busy and a bit emotional due to myself not performing, I am sure it was better was better for me to sit out this period.
Now, I can only imagine a situation where i overtrade and there was strong movement in the opposite direction of my intention. I would be in a double whammy - i) for being not in the right frame of mind; ii) for this wrong decision in the market to affect my work.
:) I hope this helped.
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