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Hey Nerds: Blockchain

Do you really prefer that? I imagine you're beating your day job with your trading, and seemingly having a lot of fun doing it.

My long term investing has beat my regular income by a lot. And that's without taking a ride on several of the hot names.

Maybe I'm just getting totally burnt out after this year, but it's getting tougher and tougher to keep up in this hamster wheel of my own making.
 
CH1 said:
People selling Apple to buy Banks the last little bit.
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I'm sort of hovering around a cash level that I feel comfortable at, though when I see I could've made some huge gains on solid names instead of letting the cash just languish doing squat, the comfort came at a high price.
 
CH1 said:
comfort is always pricey...and usually worth it tbh
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Working and trading has been a grind. I usually outperform fairly significantly when I'm active with these illiquid stocks like I've been in the last few days (compared to the relaxing moments where I just buy low and hold as I did leading up to the election). But as well as I do I can't say I enjoy it more than my passive investing. I spent all day today doing nothing but frantically staring at my screen. I calculated it and I made $2130 more than I would have if I just held what I had coming into today. On a day like today where there were wild swings it's probably worth it but most of the time I'm grinding out an extra few hundred here and there and it really isn't worth the stress long-term. I go in and out of being active and despite generally outperforming pretty significantly on average, I come to the same conclusion every time.

"Today was awesome but never again"

And now I'm going to have a late night working my day job to catch up.
 
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Preston said:
Working and trading has been a grind. I usually outperform fairly significantly when I'm active with these illiquid stocks like I've been in the last few days (compared to the relaxing moments where I just buy low and hold as I did leading up to the election). But as well as I do I can't say I enjoy it more than my passive investing. I spent all day today doing nothing but frantically staring at my screen. I calculated it and I made $2130 more than I would have if I just held what I had coming into today. On a day like today where there were wild swings it's probably worth it but most of the time I'm grinding out an extra few hundred here and there and it really isn't worth the stress long-term. I go in and out of being active and despite generally outperforming pretty significantly on average, I come to the same conclusion every time.

"Today was awesome but never again"

And now I'm going to have a late night working my day job to catch up.
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Putting aside the outlier days of $2k plus, even if you just chugged along at an extra $300 per day, that translates to an extra $6k per month and $72k per year. Definitely not nothing, especially if you keep doing it and compounding. Worth the stress of the grind? That's a personal call, but there's definitely a financial incentive.
 
CH1 said:
the hard part is when you futz around all day and come out behind
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The hard part for me are the down days. Yeah yeah, long term blah blah, but when I leave work and I'm like, ok, I billed a solid $_____, and then my account is down 10x that amount or more, it's very dispiriting. Sure, if you look at it from the aggregate view, and the market goes up, you don't sweat the speedbumps. And lately I honestly haven't. I'm kinda getting used to just absorbing huge down days since I've already had so many but I'm yet so far ahead.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
Putting aside the outlier days of $2k plus, even if you just chugged along at an extra $300 per day, that translates to an extra $6k per month and $72k per year. Definitely not nothing, especially if you keep doing it and compounding. Worth the stress of the grind? That's a personal call, but there's definitely a financial incentive.
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Definitely wouldn't make $300 per day consistently. Some days just don't have that opportunity especially when you're trading illiquid stocks like I do. My strategy has always been basically to hold a core and shuffle between a few names to save a couple bucks here and there. CH1 calls me a hedge fund... probably true.

It's usually pretty straight forward and generally I can save (not necessarily make) a couple hundred when doing that. In downtrends I'd still be down for the day most likely; just a little less. In uptrends I can typically muster out a couple hundred extra. I would call $500 a good day and $100 a not even worth it but more common than $500, day. And then there's days where I'm well into the thousands (today had potential for five figures but the move I needed didn't come) and days where I lose, but I typically keep those small. $200-250 is probably right around average when I obsessively rotate, but I only do it on days where it's worthwhile (volatility and divergence between names is required). Doesn't come every day.

tldr: even if I'm capable of doing this for a living it's not worth the stress
 
Can't argue with the last line. I don't even wade into the trading waters because I'm concerned about the brain and emotional drains.
 
I tried to make a daily goal -- $400/day = $100K US = $130K CAN (with plenty of write-offs). That amount is more than I need.... but it's actually not smart to put that daily pressure on yourself.

Like Preston said, some days offer you nothing in terms of edge, so if you're beholden to that goal, you risk forcing low probability trades just to hit your number, and conversely, sometimes you'll abandon a winner way too soon just because you've already reached your goal.

It's best to have a monthly goal in my opinion. Gives you some structure and the flexibility not too always be aggressive on days when the odds are not favourable.
 
Yeah you have to be a stone cold fox to do it. I don't even think it's particularly hard (maybe it's because I primarily stick to stupid trash stocks that allow me to easily game the system). It's just emotionally draining. This is why I keep saying that CH1 is my idol for being a stone cold emotionless fox. Dealing with emotions and balancing your life is by far the hardest part of trading. I feel like I let some things in life go by the wayside when I get in my trading grooves.

Feels like I'm describing a drug addiction.. Exact same thing really. Except this is a drug that makes me money so it's so conflicting and really hard to stop.
 
CH1 said:
I tried to make a daily goal -- $400/day = $100K US = $130K CAN (with plenty of write-offs). That amount is more than I need.... but it's actually not smart to put that daily pressure on yourself.

Like Preston said, some days offer you nothing in terms of edge, so if you're beholden to that goal, you risk forcing low probability trades just to hit your number, and conversely, sometimes you'll abandon a winner way too soon just because you've already reached your goal.

It's best to have a monthly goal in my opinion. Gives you some structure and the flexibility not too always be aggressive on days when the odds are not favourable.
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Yup. Forcing trades is no way to win. The worst is when they work and you think you're invincible!

But yeah I'm a lot more selective because I combine going long and trading so when I say I "save" $250 on average, that's on top of the gains I've made by holding (and in the case of this year holding has been the best). But the "average" is hard to say because I'll have days where I'm well into the thousands "saved" and other days where I'm down $300-400. I just find that approach works best for me personally but doesn't work the best for my quality of life so for that reason... I should be out (but I'll never quit).
 
CH1 said:
I tried to make a daily goal -- $400/day = $100K US = $130K CAN (with plenty of write-offs). That amount is more than I need.... but it's actually not smart to put that daily pressure on yourself.

Like Preston said, some days offer you nothing in terms of edge, so if you're beholden to that goal, you risk forcing low probability trades just to hit your number, and conversely, sometimes you'll abandon a winner way too soon just because you've already reached your goal.

It's best to have a monthly goal in my opinion. Gives you some structure and the flexibility not too always be aggressive on days when the odds are not favourable.
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Yeah, that is a lot of pressure. It's like being in a casino and being down and letting it all ride because you want to get back to even, even though it's not an advisable move. I also think I'd fail under those conditions because I wouldn't be able to be right often enough short term, and if I did hit it on a couple of larger trades, I'd want those to be the norm and not the exception and start to bet bigger to gain bigger. Surefire recipe for disaster.
 
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