Regardless of how much money you might be missing out on, you know you have a problem when trading comes before your friends/family. As nice as it is, money isnt everything!
I suppose the answer depends in part on whether you live to trade or trade to live. Sure, there is the draw of making good money in the markets and it is certainly one of the selling features for me. But so is the freedom. And there is limited value in having that freedom if you do not exercise it from time to time.
Good posts, guys. I guess the biggest reason for this attitude of wanting to trade every day is due to the fact that I'm still a newb...relatively speaking. But I agree with what many of you have mentioned. I just can't let trading be the central focus of my daily life. I'm an avid hiker/climber. So I've decided to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa this year! No chance of internet access there for sure!
One thing that will help relax your mind while you're away is to close out all your positions while you're gone. Every single one. Then you have no reason to check the market movement.
This is a pretty ill-thought-out post. What about the opportunity cost of working? If you had 24 hours left to live, and Bill Gates offered you $20 bill to code Excel spreadsheets until you croaked, whereas Adriana Lima begged you to take her virginity for free, which would you choose? According to your ridiculous post, you would actually choose the former - the opportunity cost of deflowering the Brazilian hottie would be $20 billion, after all. P.S. Hint - work has an opportunity cost too. You could be doing something fun instead.
What if someone offered you $100 billion to spend every waking minute of the rest of your life cleaning toilets. The money is worthless unless you have the leisure time to benefit from spending it. Working for money is not a cost-free benefit. It is the sale of irreplaceable leisure time - lifespan - for spending power/money. Since lifespan is limited, and there is no way to get it back, it is the most valuable resource. Any 80 year old billionaire would give his ENTIRE FORTUNE to be a penniless 20 year old again. No penniless 20 year old would willingly swap places with an 80 year old billionaire who was about to croak in 6 months.
Your will to live is very strong, I see. You're lucky. First of all, with the exception of a few brief moments of sexual/romantic bliss here and there, trading stocks & futures during the Golden Age is the most enjoyable thing I've ever done. I was one of those "Thank God it's Monday!" guys back then. Secondly, you shouldn't have overlooked the fact that working 8-10 hour days (pre-market, post-market & research included) for five days per week still leaves one with more than enough time for champagne, blow & slut related activities. Not once did I <b>ever</b> find myself wishing I was engaged in some other activity while trading the Golden Age. <i>"What if someone offered you $100 billion to spend every waking minute of the rest of your life cleaning toilets."</i> Third, you <i>do</i> know you just totally picked the wrong guy to ask that question, right? Predicting my likely response in such a hypothetical, abstract situation isn't easy... but I do believe I'd probably <b>take that deal</b> with the intention of killing myself a week later, leaving my double-Gates megafortune to the heirs of my choosing. Going out like a hero-benefactor has its appeal, after all. $100Bil is a pretty fair price for my past-prime junkie ass... where do I sign?
how boring are your holidays? sky diving? white water rafting? mountain climbing? scuba diving? snow boarding? chasing ladies? there is way more to life than a computer screen!