I'm impressed with your IRA trading. I have a smaller IRA, about half the size. And I'm also doing self management, but I don't have time to be actively trading it and do my job at the same time. I actually put half of my IRA into small vaccine start-ups and hoping it will commercialize a vaccine and return multiples in investment. Of course, it is very risky, but I figure I'm still young enough to take some risks. I think I'm going to end my year with the retirement account at around $200K...went up to $240K at one point, but the market turned. Good luck with both you and me. How many more years until your retirement? My wife thinks that I'm crazy to trade in my retirement account, most would be satisfied to just put it on an index ETF.
Risk wise your wife is probably right, index investing is a very good strategy. Might be good for you to study valuation informed index investing. My strategy would be to have a margin account and some cash equivalent ,then go 100% equity in a bear market and use margin to maintain nominal equity value if it dropped further. When the market recovers you will make good money. Problem now is , it's hard to tell what is central bank driven illusionary gain vs earning driven gain. hope this helps
This week reducing work permanently (hopefully) . have been working 7 days week the past 3 months. (been responsible for running 2 offices and passing federal inspections) Working 4 days this week, 2-3 days next week and on into next year. As mentioned previously this was part of my plan to devote more time to trading and avoid the negative effects of too much work stress. Meeting 12/10 revealed work reducing productivity points for most of type work performed by 1/3 in order to eligible for full time benefits. Told them at the x-mas party in no uncertain terms they were screwing us. No doubt all this has to do with obama care. will post more later.
Account value unchanged from last update 11/29/12 Guess semi-retirement has arrived. I'm looking forward to dramatically lower work related stress. Hopefully I'm not just exchanging work related stress for financial insecurity stress. I estimate I'm reducing my earned income by 65%. So I'm going to need to be significantly profitable in 20 months. I've already started efforts at meditation and it's readily apparent I've developed an inability to relax.
Kickboxing / MMA classes helped me relax when trading. Fighting is also a very good metaphor for trading - learning low risk combinations, knowing exactly what you're going to do before you commit, how you will defend & get out if your plan does not unfold as expected, and you get to punch, kick, and generally beat the $hit out of many targets. Definitely a stress reliever, and talk about getting in shape.... u'll be ripped like a racehorse if you can stick around for a few monthz
I've already got that plan covered. I'm moving to the city where the Master lives in order to train more. I might look like George Constanza, but I can kick ass pretty good. Unfortunately the inability to relax as of late (except for this last week I've worked everyday for the past 3 months) has been causing me almost daily migraines and when they do come they usually rebound the same day. I have lots of triggers besides work stress. hot weather, all artificial sweetners, MSG and prolonged computer use or reading more than 120 pgs/day. So far I've completely eliminated the dietary triggers. The sensitivity to reading from a monitor is a problem for my trading study habits but not the trading itself (because I'm a position trader).
1/3/13 I'll post annual return calculation later . Evidently I'm an obsessive reader and i'm busy right now.