2006 in review

Well, my trading account, which I opened in March 2006 is down 27R. I traded
over 100 stocks in that time! Commissions were 8.7R and the remaining
18R were the following bonehead moves:

NWRE lost 5R by not adhering to a sell rule.
CTRN lost 2R by averaging down.
BTJ lost 11R by both averaging down and not adhering to sell rules.

Without those 3 trades, my acct would pretty much be even right now
(minus commissions). That's not great, but it wouldn't be bad.

The other mistake I made was trading too much and trading in a sideways
or down market. The problem there was trading for trading's sake. I
couldn't sit by and wait for conditions to improve. Instead, I kept
testing the waters and bleeding money.

Here's another common theme: the stocks I made good money on, like IFO,
FTEK, AP, AOB, I made money on quick. Generally within 2 weeks they'd
be up 20%. I might hold part of it longer, but I don't really have any
good winners that were just held for a long time and then sold.

Also, as of the start of the New Year, I'm on my own picking stocks
again. I spent a lot of time over at Investor's Paradise under Josh's
tutelage, but they have gone pay for play. I wish them luck and think
it's certainly worth the money, but I just can't spend that much on it
right now. I certainly learned a lot there and think I have grown as a
trader from being exposed to Josh and the rest of the folks I met there.

Here's a quote from Josh that is invaluable to a beginning trader:

14:03:38 [MauiTrader] it is so weird
14:03:42 [MauiTrader] how once you make rules
14:03:45 [MauiTrader] and stick to them
14:03:48 [MauiTrader] if you do lose money
14:03:54 [MauiTrader] you notice you lose a LOT less
14:04:11 [MauiTrader] and then when you get a couple of winners you
start to see drastic changes in the account number
14:04:30 [MauiTrader] i will never forget the moment I realized my
account was never going to take a huge hit again
14:04:34 [MauiTrader] it was a great feeling

I hope to know that feeling soon. Aloha to the end of one year and the beginning of another.