This month is my 1 year anniversary of semi-actively trading. It has been a ugly year, money wise, but a HOLY SH!T year, education wise. I started with about 30k and lost about 1500$-ish which totally sucks. On the one hand, you can't take a loss as a win, on the over hand, an education is never free and failures are only truly a failure if you are not learning from mistakes. So what have I learned? STICK TO A PLAN, just stick to it for the love of all that is good and right, stick to it. I feel like a fool because I did NOT stick to my loss numbers and the worst loses I had was because "I Smoked the Hopium" with the idea MAYBE it will turn my way turning what would have been a small into into a bigger loss. Statistically I now know, this is NOT the way to go. My first quarter was actually good, Oct to Dec I was up a couple grand. 2nd quarter Jan to March, was HELL and I fell prolly 3k, and was REALLY depressed about the fact. I came back over the summer though I traded Blue Chips off dips, which at the very least got my back on the horse. 

Things I changed, I stopped using other peoples lists as a starting point; I now use a Pre-market- screener and charts to find what is interesting to me. I do look at other people lists, but really only to see what others are thinking. But the reality is that waking up 1.5 hours before the market open, and looking at my screener gives me a better group of tickers that is active. I only do morning trades, I have a regular job and a life, so I can't dedicate the whole day to this. I still only go for long plays on, price action, volume and lower float stocks. At about 30 minutes till market open I have one stock that I plan to play. I have my entry and exit mentally tagged. If my entry does not come to me I simply move on to the rest of my day. I still have a lot to learn, and a lot of things I want to get a better grasp on. 

Thanks to Tim Sykes for the inspiration (and his numerous videos) for starting me on this journey and Tim Grittani I like his trading style and all the fellow posters on Profit.ly (cause it's nice to have company in both the Good and Bad trades). 

Here's to Year 2!

 

Chris