Working Out the Resolutions
First a quick look at my two swing- shorts- to- be:
Watching the recent drop has been agonizing, because my “usual” form of trading would have me short in both of them already. However, this is nearly a new year, and is already a new trading season for me (see next paragraph), and I’m trying to wait patiently for the drop and pullback. The newer, more patient Dummy.
Speaking of changes… I’m doing no daytrading whatsoever at the moment. Remember my little scalping experiment on December 15, where I made 32 trades in just over two hours? Well, I ended in the red, as I expected. Tuition, I called it. Couple hundred bucks. Lost 30, lost 20, lost 60, made 100, yada, yada, yada. Very interesting learning experience, and some useful info for the future.
Fast-forward to yesterday. I was printing out my 2006 account history from every angle, for my year-end analysis and resolution-tweaking. The one about not trading options is on the list every year. Every year I have a list of puts and calls near the “biggest losers” end of my printout. Well this year, they were there again, but not as the biggest losers. The biggest losers were all from December 15, 2006, where the printout shows I lost over $7000 in one day. Merry Christmas!
Yeah. I started to puke in the trash can by my desk, but was able to choke the feeling back. Deep breath. Another deep breath. Then a cold beer.
This is just a numbers error. I have the individual trade confirmations showing where I lost 20 or 30 dollars on most of the losing trades, not six or eight hundred.
So, I’ll be spending the days from now into the new year getting things straightened out. And working on my Schedule D.
My taxes are always 15 minutes for everything else, 4 hours on the Schedule D. Gonna be longer this time around- nearly 600 trades. And believe me, that is gonna factor into the ‘07 resolutions for sure. That’s too damned much trouble for someone who still works for someone else. I’ve gotta get to fewer, more profitable trades. In my situation, I think that means more swings, less days.
Also, the last major site redesign was (gasp) four months ago! That’s probably my record. I usually get sick of a layout after a few weeks. So, ‘07 is likely to see a new look for DummySpots.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. For now, I’m going to observe my new, earlier bedtime. ‘Nite ya’ll.
ronan said,
December 27, 2006 @ 3:26 pm
Do you compile your Schedule D manually or do you use a service like gainskeeper.com?
Very nice blog, I have been enjoying it.
Will said,
December 28, 2006 @ 10:18 am
hi ronan! I’ve always done the Sched D manually- it’s like a forcible review of each and every trade (I find myself saying “WTF was I thinking?” a lot), and also a bit of a control thing. However, last year I did it manually, then downloaded the Gainskeeper version into TurboTax to save a couple extra hours of typing. With the volume of trades this year, I’ll probably print out the Gainskeeper version, review it, then just download it and go with it. I can’t imagine doing all of these with a pencil and calculator. Thanks for the comment!