What's up guys, it's been a while since my last post.

I haven't been trading as much as I would've liked to because of my job, and because I try to spend as much time as possible with my daughter and my girlfriend. Finding a balance in your life is crucial if you have any hopes of succeeding in your journey, because all that studying and trading will take a toll on you and your family. There hasn't been a day though where I haven't checked the markets, trying to trade here and there, but for the most part I have been all cash.

Ever since I started trading, I've been strictly on the long side because of the advantages of the TFSA accounts Canadians have access to. Long story short, Tax Free Savings Accounts give you an edge because your capital gains aren't taxable, but you're limited in the amount you can wire into it, and you can only go long. I truly believe that to be proficient in the markets, one has to be able to swing both ways so to speak. So limiting yourself to strictly one side is okay when you're beginning to trade, but as you progress and get more knowledgeable, you need to test different strategies to really find what you are good at. I had been testing my long strategies for a few months, and now it was time for me to branch out.

I shopped around different brokers to find one that fit my needs the last few weeks, and at last, my new account received my funds last Wednesday. I had been watching $GERN with an eagle eye for a few days at this point, and I was expecting it to go parabolic on Thursday morning. So when I got up, I immediately located 400 shares just in case I was proven right, and got short for the first time.

I half-expected it to be weird and stressful, confusing at times, and to be terrible at it. You know, kind of like having sex for the first time. There's a lot of stuff moving around and you just don't know what the fuck you're doing.

So I got my shorts on pre-market, 200 shares, and covered in the morning dip right before the bell. Cool, I'm up 4% and the day just started, I thought. See This link to know how much of an idiot I can be. After getting a few paper cuts on the way up that sweet, sweet spike, and giving back more than I had made, I reshorted and covered twice on the way down. Once from $6.15 to $6.01 because I'm a wuss, then got right back in from $5.98 to $5.46. Man, you truly can't understand this feeling until you're short and the price cracks $0.10-$0.20 a pop. I mean you think, read and hear about it, imagine what it can be like, and you've been practicing on your own, but it's nothing like the real thing (Another sex analogy? Really?).

I don't know why, but it's a lot more satisfactory for me on the short side. I made 19 round trips that day, both long and short, and finished green, but the only trades I was engrossed in were shorts. I haven't uploaded the data to Profit.ly, and probably won't until my broker gets listed, because uploading in bulk when you trade a lot is too time consuming, and just a giant pain in the ass.

We'll see how it goes from here on out, but I'm excited to see what the future holds for me.

Sorry I turned a Short story, so Long. Insert winky face.

Thanks for reading guys and see you out there. Feel free to reach out if you have questions or for whatever reason, I'll gladly help if I can.

Twitter: @mickdostie