The Meltdown Begins

The woodshed is calling my name today. It's not going to be pretty for most of us out there. Fortunately, I've been working on not getting bothered when things go south. I've got my protective stops in place and I'm going to let the market do it's thing. I'll crunch the numbers after the close, but I'm done looking at this disaster until then.

I wish I had more experience under my belt. If I did, I could do a better job of managing the summertime insanity. Last year at this time was awful too. Maybe I just need to take a vacation at the end of May and come back to things in August.

But for now I plan to continue to plug along throughout the summer. If anything, I'm being forced to learn some additional money management lessons. Hang in there everybody!

After the close:

Ouch. The final tally--down --5.54%--my worst showing since June of last year. AZZ took a plunge that tripped my protective stop on the way down. VSEA was my next biggest looser. I didn't have anything that made money today. These are the kind of days that shake the uncommitted out for good.

Days like these make keeping a trading journal essential. It's easy to get emotionally wrapped up in a terrible day like today and think that all is lost. But when I looked back to this same week last year I was down 6% for the week. So far this week I'm down just 4.27%. Despite some awful days last year, the return on the portfolio was still pretty good.

So, I hope everybody is taking things in stride and setting themselves up for the comeback--whenever that may be.