a99kitten's Musings

Have been swamped with a couple new clients plus tax time so hadn’t looked at my trading account quarterly P/L until this morning. I knew it would be bad, but ouch. I think was a good case for ignorance is bliss. Sigh… – 10% for the quarter. 10.3 to be exact.

This is my first losing quarter since the 1st quarter of 2012. Which I guess is good but ugh. The really dumb thing is up until mid-March, I was solidly up. I place blame at the feet of Janet Yellen! Of course, my insistence at continuing to play when the game changed was very dumb.

Looking at my trades from the quarter, I **really** owe Elon Musk a big hug as I made a lot trading TSLA. CEO crush confirmed :)

And my second biggest gains are tied – trading PLUG and precious metals (both silver and gold in various forms.) This further solidifies my Uncle Scrooge love as well ;)

Another hero :)

Biggest loser? AMZN calls held through ER. Ugh. First time they let me down though so I guess that I can’t complain too much. 2nd biggest loser? AAPL. I made so much money trading AAPL calls in the past. It was so fun. The fun has sure been sucked out of that stock though. I am making myself a promise – NO MORE AAPL! I have my long term common paying me dividends (and that’s about all it does lately) but no more trading it. It’s a slug. And that’s insulting to slugs. Oh well. My fault. Tim Cook didn’t make me buy the options.

Had I listened to chessNwine (over at iBankCoin), I would have been less invested over this time period. But the gambler in me couldn’t help it. Luckily I never play too large in options since you can literally lose 100% pretty quickly (quickly when playing in the momo stocks anyway.) I know I’ll make it back. But I hate when I feel stupid. And there was more than 1 occasion (a lot more) when I KNEW I should sell something but the greedy devil inside me said “hold out for a little more”. And then POOF. Just like letting it all ride on black and the ball lands on red. Stupid. I get mad at myself when I do stupid things and KNOW I know better. Grrrr.

A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense…so I WILL make it back and then some. But all I can think right now is I should be adding to gains, not making up losses. *shakesfist*

Yesterday I went over my trading account portfolio for the year. Up 21% for 2012. I’ll take that. I also put some long-term ideas into my 401k that Chess had profiled in his blog posts but I did not count those in the 21% (if I did, I would be up more as they are up nicely as well :) )

I left my full-time job in April (YAY! I liked you guys but YAY!!!) and have been working from home on a part-time basis since then. So after I left work, I also signed up for a premium trading service (had never done that before.) I had been following chessNwine and TheFly on twitter since mid-2011 but with my work schedule I didn’t have a lot of extra time to devote to trading other than my “gut” feelings (which is how I typically trade AND gamble :).) But I knew that once I left my job, and could devote some more time to trading, I wanted to try out their premium service(s).

I keep a chunk of my money in more conservative investments. And physical gold/silver in my quest to become Scrooge McDuck. And Star Wars collectibles (doh!) But I wanted to use my trading account as a learning tool. Also, my shopping fund. So I signed up in April 2012 and while I still don’t spend enough time on it (I need to do MOAR studying!), I have done pretty OK following on trades discussed in the 12631 trading room.

I’m usually pretty quiet in the trading room and don’t post much. LURKER! But it’s a pretty great group of guys (I say guys because I don’t see many names that indicate there are other girls but maybe they are quiet like me) and I am VERY glad that I signed up.

I typically just follow on Chess’ trades but also some of RaginCajun and The Fly’s. And also a few based on other traders in the room mentioning them or me finding them. But mostly – follower. I hope to be more of a contributor to the room this year but will still follow on the trades because #1 Rule: Don’t change successful actions!

So a big thank you to Chess, RC and The Fly for creating fantastic content, great products and a fun, interactive place for traders. Oh yeah…and profitable trades :)

Go here if you want join in the fun: http://ibankcoin.com/