Best of Luck for your future HuggieBear! Just wondering what life changes have really forced you to stop your trading - an endeavor on which you worked so hard for so many years!
While doing this for the last few years, i've been doing so while working fulltime and with a one-year old and two-year old. Since the kids were born, it is hard to overstate the stress associated with this endeavour. I have literally lost 10's of thousands of dollars on discretionary positions while having to run and change a diaper or other such random stuff. The only reason this has even been possible is because my job was such that I had some flexibility. In the next few months I will be taking a new job, in a new city, and it will involve significantly more hours and less flexibility. The situation could change in a couple of years, but I need to clear the decks for at least the first 12 - 24 months. It was a difficult choice because on the one hand I believe I am within a couple of years of being able to go full-time trading (in terms of both capital base and trading effectiveness). But, at the end of the day, choosing this path is lower risk and will better position me to eventually live solely off investments/trading. Thanks for your response...making this transition is not going to be easy after eating, sleeping, and drinking the market for the last several years!
Thanks HB for taking the time to explain the reasons and thought process behind your decision. I completely empathize with you especially having two kids and a much more intense job and managing markets along with that. Basically, time you will be able to devote to market going forward will be substantially lesser, making you a weaker participant compared to others in the market. Still its a tough decision to take a break from everything that you worked so hard over last few years to achieve. I found your journal to be very systematic and organized. Its a pity that ET will lose your contribution going forward. I sincerely hope you will take sometime to update your journal though. Best of luck for your future.
Thanks GMST, very much appreciate the sentiment. Glad you enjoyed the journal -- I realize it could have been much better (with more info), but it was improving over time. Most importantly, it was helpful for me. I am going to continue to update it from time to time, mostly for my own purposes. It won't be as interesting as I will not be running as active systems, but it will help me record my activities. Thanks
A Blind Squirrel, and all that.... Performance for Week 34: Weekly % Return = +9.0% 2011 P/L = +33.5% Current DD = -2.3% MDD = -16.3% Moved about half of my portfolio into a long-term, diversified and passive portfolio and was lucky enough to benefit from buying near the bottom. Buying something and holding it is certainly an odd experience, and not all that pleasant, but so far I managed to hold on. More importantly this week, I did a bunch of discretionary trading and had the best week of my trading career (apropos as it comes to an end). Basically, I went into the week with the firm conviction that the bottom would hold, so I bought, and when the market dipped i bought some more. Turned out to be the correct strategy every day except for Thursday, and I was able to make back nearly all my losses from a few weeks ago. For this coming week, the two equities systems I'll be running are positioned as follows: 1) System 1 - 45 Week SMA System Long GLD Long TLT 2) System 2 - Weekly Channel Breakout -no positions- As can be seen both systems are positioned conservatively. Unfortunately, i missed the entries for GLD and TLT a few weeks ago, so at this time I am not invested in either system. Unfortunately. Now that my account is back near all-time highs, my intent is to rely on passive investing as well as the two systems, and pretty much eliminate discretionary trading. While I had a good week this week, I have enough experience to know it is not sustainable (at least, not while working). So I will take this little unexpected gift of erasing my recent terrible losses, and try to ensure it is not reversed through stupidity... HB
I have not been on this site in probably a year. Looks like your year is good. Good numbers. Best to you!
HuggieBear signs off.... Performance for Week 40(ish): Weekly % Return = +8.4% (actually covers about 4 weeks) 2011 P/L = +48.92% Current DD = -0.0% MDD = -16.3% THIS WILL BE MY LAST POST. Per my earlier journal entry, I am giving up active trading to focus on a new job. This week, i closed down one trading account and ceased all futures data services ( i am blind). So, this is my final performance update. Unlike most unsuccessful traders, I will have the unusual luxury of going out on an absolute high note. The markets, and my account, have been very volatile for me since July...and I've experienced a lot of ups and downs. But, as i close down my trading this week I am up nearly 50% on the year, generating profits in the low-mid six figures, nearly 3x the levels from last year. Unfortunately, those profits came with a tremendous amount of volatility. While its not reflected within my MDD number (-16%), which seems pretty reasonably, I experienced several 10%+ drawdowns that occurred within a day or two. I believe one of those drawdowns could have easily extended even further in a worst case scenario. I have no confidence I could reproduce these results year-in, year out without eventually blowing up. I do believe I could be successful trading full time, but I do not think I could safely generate much more than 15%-20% profits. In order to generate enough cash to live on, that means I need a much larger capital base to be successful on a full time basis. Most of my recent profits were generated through discretionary trading. For those who may be curious, here is how my three systems have performed for the YTD: 1) Equities System = -2% YTD (in 10% drawdown) 2) Equities System2 = -1.25% 3) Futures System = +3% YTD (6% MDD) So, not a great performance by my systems, but then they are mostly trend following systems, and this has not been a great trend following year. I will continue to "forward test" those systems over the next couple of years to see if they will serve as a good foundation for my eventual return. Good luck to you all, and thanks for following HuggieBears market mayhem....
Made a mistake in my final P/L calculations -- I finish the year up 38%, which is indeed a new high for the year (by about 2%), but not as robust as I had indicated above. HB