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*

Q3 has drawn to a close and I must say that I am pretty happy with how it went. And glad I did not sell in May and go away. Well…actually…I could have gone away at the end of May and then come back in July. June trading was awful. But that was soooo last quarter.

To be honest, I checked my numbers 3 times to make sure they were right. And they were. For Q3 I was +17.7%. Not so bad at all. In looking at most successful trades, a lot of them were calls. This is actually bad since I have been trying to limit my options trades and this won’t encourage that attempt at a new behavior ;)

I made some excellent trades in (and out and back in again) pure momo names. TSLA? Check. NFLX? Check. YELP? Check. Plus a few more of the usual suspects. Although — my biggest and best trade was in a former momo — AAPL (calls…doh!) I happened to own some calls *before* Carl Icahn’s tweet (aka pure luck.) I owe him a fruit basket of apples :)

My most absolute worst trade was in another momo – SODA. Ugh. Should have known better on that one though. 2nd worst trade? UVXY. I don’t think I need to say anything more about that one. Those ETFs are garbage. But oh well. I made a note next to it in my spreadsheet “Never, ever trade this again stupid” and highlighted it.

I also started taking more ideas from inside the 12631 trading room. I have typically followed chessNwine in all of his longs. I don’t short much at all though. And this past quarter I followed a few more of RaginCajun’s quick strikes and ideas from other members.

I also was able to take advantage of a few stocks that got beaten down on a single news event and make money on the quick pop up. BA, LL, WMT. This is actually why I keep CNBC on during the day as I wouldn’t notice the news fast enough otherwise.

I’ve also been trying to take more profits quicker. I promised myself that I was going to do that in my trading account. Stocks/companies that I believe in and want to keep – buy them for my 401k. But my trading account is for trading. I just don’t trust this market. So I’d rather take some profits and maybe miss out on another move up than lose them and be in a losing trade on a quick retrace. And you can always join back in if you’ve got a runner. I’ve done that a few times in the Chinese solars lately. In and out and back in (and out) again! (mmmmm….now I want a double double with cheese.)

Although what’s funny about that strategy is that I’ve not sold when a stock turns on me and then had it come right back in a day or 2 (or sometimes later that same day.) My semi-blind trust in the exuberant market working in my favor. It can hurt me too (SODA) but has frankly worked more than not so…

Of course as I say all of this, Washington is doing its darn best to wreck the 4Q. But we’ll see. I think by finding selective stocks and trading quickly, money can still be made. At least for now.

“Work smarter, not harder” ~~ Scrooge McDuck

2nd quarter is in the books. It’s crazy to think the year is halfway over. Zoinks. 180 days until Christmas!!

I just did a quick calculation and for Q2 2013 I am up +13% in my trading account. I say once again not too shabby at all. Sadly, I would have been up more if we ended the quarter at the end of May but that’s my fault. Ugh. But again keeping in mind that my trading account is small as I consider it more of my gambling/learning/shopping account. And through May we have had a great bull run.

My biggest win by far for the quarter was trading TSLA. Sadly I wanted to buy and hold in my 401k as well as trade it but never did. When it was in the low 30s! Doh. Oh well. I day traded it with everyone else so it’s not like I was genius. Sure was as a fun run though :) I’m still holding a 1/4 position. Second biggest win was definitely in solar. Mostly SCTY calls before earnings, but then trading in and out of FSLR and SCTY. Again…sadly though…I am still holding 1/2 positions from higher prices in both so they might be my sad face positions next quarter. Also did very well with NUGT and DUST. Consolation trades for my physical gold. But that’s a long term holding and like Uncle Scrooge, I will just keep hoarding! ;) I know most people hate gold. Maybe that’s the reason I like it.

Ironically my biggest loser was DUST. Sold my last bit of it for a loss right before it skyrocketed. Dope. But I’ve learned my lesson there. Other big losers were all option ER plays. While I’ve apparently not learned some lessons, I have learned to limit downside risk if deciding to gamble on ER.

Like the 1st Q, besides my TSLA and ER trades, I am still basically following trades in the 12631 trading room made by chessNwine and RaginCajun and a few other ideas thrown out by other traders in the room. I have way, way more winners than losers by doing this.

But my biggest mistake, that I KEEP making and ***really*** need to deprogram myself of, is the feeling that I will miss a run so don’t sell when I have a winner. Then some stupid headline comes out or some bad economic data point and the market tanks taking my wins with it. I am really, really, really, not being very disciplined and I think I would cry if I looked at what I *could* have made but let go due to greed/stupidity/whatever. Now, true, sometimes I do get the wins and they do run further but I am determined to make myself learn this lesson. I keep a spreadsheet of all my trades and mark the ones that I feel were failed whether they turn to losses, flat or even still positive but not as much as they were. I label them *stupid*.

My gut ends up being right a lot, but I don’t listen to it enough. Sigh.

Just sold my leftover 1/2 position of TSLA up +10%. I almost sold it last week but liked Elon’s tweet so kept it.

I bought it in February at 39. Pretty sure I top-ticked it. Genius! When it crashed into the 34s I violated the “cut your losses before you bleed” rule because I knew it would go back up. I didn’t know how long it might take, but I knew (of couse assuming the market didn’t completely roll over that is.)

Sold my first half when it came back and I broke even on it. Kept the other half on because one thing I strongly believe is Trust in the Paypal Mafia. I know some of these guys personally and they are smart. I take their smarts over Zuckerburg smart any day of the week. Plus the FB seed money came from the Paypal mafia so there you go :)

I snicker repeatedly when I read people’s snarky comments on StockTwits or Twitter about LNKD or TSLA. Or even YELP. Or FB for that matter. But they don’t know these guys. And live to scalp $0.10 on trades.

I was **very** dumb in that I didn’t buy LNKD for my 401k last year instead of just trade in and out of it. But oh well. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Not sure TSLA performs like that but who knows. Maybe I should sock some away in my 401k. It’s a technology company. Not an auto company. But I sold it out of my trading account this morning because a) it’s for trading and not keeping and b) pigs get slaughtered.

I like the first day of the quarter so far. No joke :)

Also…Elon looks like John Barrowman (Torchwood, Arrow) who I thought looked like Tom Cruise when I saw him at SDCC. Yet Elon looks nothing like Tom Cruise so…….weird! (it’s their chins!)

Elon Musk

John Barrowman

Tom Cruise