If this is directed at me, I assure you I can beat investing with my trading. If the only rational answer you can come up with for trading is to limit risk by reducing time in the market, then you have no business trading. Congrats on your success in 2009. Just wondering how your index purchasing fared in 2008?
Investing vs trading??? What does it matter how you make your money. I averaged approximately 6000 trades per year between 2005-07 trading individual stocks. I made enough to pay my bills and add to my retirement nest egg each year. But it was tedious and not a whole heck of a lot of fun sitting clued to my computer. This year I have made but a few hundred trades, yet more than the profits of 2005-07 combined because I was onboard a winning asset class - junk bond funds - that never looked back and there was no reason to trade in and out.
1) Well of course you can. Everybody here on ET is just like lake woebegone where every student is above average. 2) I don't claim to be trading though some jealous traders insist that I am. Honestly I don't care. I consider myself an indexer that times market risk. 3) 2008 was a great year. I'm looking forward to doing it again sometime soon.
Answered PMs, but there were a few that would not go through. I am not sure if your PM box was full, or you turned PM off. Happy Holidays and Best Wishes in 2010.
16% on a low 7 figure IRA account. Not bad considering I was on the wrong side of the market most of the year. Was 13% in May, -8% in Sept, lots of wheel spinning. My year was saved by the EUR. Great job Cutten.
If any aspect of your trading involves your discretion, meditation is great in keeping a clear view of the objective reality of what is happening in the here and now. You have to know that emotions, predominantly greed and fear, are the primary saboteurs of any good, non-automated trading plan. As for my year, I had a profitable year but similar to last year in that I had profitable months into the fall and gave a relative bunch back when I bumped up the size. Now wasn't I just saying something about the benefits of meditation keeping the emotions at bay and it sure does seem like the size psyched me out Merry Xmas to all!!
Up 154 % YTD, mostly on stocks, though I've been delving into options over the past couple of months. However, I think this figure is mostly (if not entirely) due to "beginner's luck". I know I've made a ton of stupid mistakes this year, that have cost me thousands in profits. Thus, I will be spending the next two weeks reading up on options/derivatives, and getting a trading plan together for the new year. I also decided to go ahead and start posting on ET, instead of just skulking in the background.