I started this blog in late 2012 trying to use it to help sort my thoughts about my personal investing and trading. At that time I managed the great bulk of both my taxable and retirement accounts. In 2013 I had what I considered to be a phenomenal year, up about 45%.
I thought I was pretty smart, that maybe I had finally figured out how to make money. I was right and I was wrong. In the first quarter of 2014, using the same techniques, I lost about 30% putting my account back to where it was at the start of 2013. I had made a round trip. But I had really lost money as I had to pay taxes on good portion of my 2013 gains so I ended up 2014 with losses that I couldn’t deduct (other than $3K) and had to carry them forward.
I wasn’t sleeping well at night and many times during the day I would ruminate on my 30% loss. Losing felt far worse than what I would have predicted. I couldn’t remember how good making money felt.
So I made a change. I took most of my assets and placed them with Fidelity’s managed portfolio and carved out two accounts to trade options, one retirement account, and one taxable account. I also have a taxable account where I just buy and hold. No options trading.
These two accounts now comprise about 20% of the value of my retirement accounts and about 15% of the value of my taxable accounts.
Last year I made about 75% in the retirement account and about 35% in the taxable account. The managed accounts returned a bit under 19%. I pull cash out of the two active trader accounts twice a year and put them into managed accounts so that the trading accounts keep about the same dollar value going forward.
This has been a really good technique for me and the fact that they comprise a ever shrinking part of my assets frees me up to take risk. Simply put it has made trading fun for me again. I look forward to it every day and I sleep well every night. I haven’t lost any sleep on my positions for over 2 years, not one night. Gains feel good and losses sting, but its pretty equal now, not asymmetric.
So I’m here again, mostly for myself. I want to write some of this down to help me focus, but I also want to help others, particularly people like me, retired but looking for something stimulating and social.
So I invite you to join me. I’m going to build this site slowly and hope to eventually add an email newsletter. I’ll tell you waht I’m doing. I’ll tell you what has worked and what hasn’t. I want to critique some of the free content out there, particularly that promulgated by CNBC. I watch CNBC way more than I should but I have a much better relationship with them than I used to. I plan on talking about soon, maybe the next post.
Until then, good luck with your trading and investing! Aloha!