Week In Review 2-8-2008

Another crummy week--down 3.22%. I feel better overall about how I handled the week. Like I've said recently, I'm more comfortable putting money to work and losing than watching from the sidelines. It did feel good to be in cash on some of those awful days, but the days where the market surged forward while I watched made me feel crunchy.

My goal this year is now to stay fully invested and see if I can still accomplish my goals. My constant indecision about whether to be in or out has already cost me several percent. I'm doing worse than all the screens (except To The Moon), despite missing out on some big down days.

I really want to see this year if trading for a living is a viable prospect. It may be good for me to go through a rough time like this so I can prepare for them in the future. If I can recover this year, I'll feel a lot more comfortable going forward.

Week In Review 7-06-2007

This week illustrates why mechanical trading often trumps putting lots of intellectual labor into choosing stocks. Conventional wisdom suggested that this was a very poor week to trade.

1. The July 4th Holiday split the week in half
2. Volume during this week is historically tepid
3. Market news was infrequent and uninspiring
4. A lot of folks took the week off
5. The market is way overbought

I was contemplating cashing out and taking a break with everyone else this week. But I stayed fully invested. It wasn't because I had a good idea how things would work out this week. It was because I really have no idea what's going to happen and most other folks don't as well. It is when I start to get cocky and think I've got things figured out that the market sinks me like a 10 foot put.

If I had opted out, I would have passed up my best week in over a year. The portfolio was up 9.43%. My best screen continues to give credence to its name and it blew the others away 13.79% (To the Moon). My worst screen was still decent at 5.82% (Zweig and Zacks #1).