Feels so good, readig this after 2 years when I was just starting out and was doing crazy stuff, actually that year I ended with $1,500 loss for the year, not bad given I was brand new and I have a full time job. In 2005 I stopped trading when I was -$4,000 into trading. I just STOPPED, did not buy a single share, a single trade, just my 401K. Plus, I relocated from Canada back to the East Bay, San Francisco. Started trading again last month, looking at my old trades things are so outragious...I was trading 1,000-1,800 shares per clip. Looks crazy to me today, given I am trading at 100 shares per trade, still swinging, not day trading. Good Luck and Bad Luck. I hear over and over again...small gains are great but ONE big loss will put out of business. This is from diary - SHORTED SONS @ $5.70 (happened to be the day before earnings announcemment, did not even know it). The next day stock tanked to $4.00...so I covered. One shot $2,000 overnight. Felt like I own this market. -SHORT GEOI at around $12.50, based on technicals this stock was so overrun, overbot, over everything, that I shorted more when it hit $13.00 but this son of a bitck kept going up due to rising price of oil and some crap coming from the middle east....According to technicals this stock did not have to go up...it was poised to go DOWN...but sure enough SOB kept going up and I was forced to cover @ $17.00 to watch this same GEOI drop to $15>13>11>9>$8 even though price of oil did not go down, neither did shareprice of Exxon or other major oil companies... Truth is - Pros took my money. I lost and felt shit and disgusted and had to take a while off. In the mean time a multi-unit property came up and I invested my money in that building and I am very pleased with landlording and real estate. In addition I bot my primary residence here in CA (where prices are just crazy...tho cooling now) so 2 REI deals drained my cash (remaining cash)...until I started again. I put all the losses and wins behind and started again last month. I am in no hurry, I am not planning to make $100000000000 next month but want to learn, learn, do it and keep it real. I am hitting 30 next year and it's about time to have my trading "career" under control, since I started "in my twenties" I've benefited so much for this board so though I owed to share this story. Want to say good luck everybody and I am BACK!