Poormans.com Home: "KEY THOUGHT: 'The servant who received the bags of gold began immediately to invest the money and soon doubled it.' MATT 25:16 (NLT)
MY STRATEGY: '....not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.' I Corinthians 10:33 (NKJV)
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Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
The Kirk Report : My Performance Review ----- Great Thoughts!!
The Kirk Report : My Performance Review: "My Performance Review
My Performance Review
Back by popular request, it is time once again to take a closer look at my performance so far in 2005. So far, I've booked 81 trades. 62 trades have been winners (76.5%) and 19 trades have been losers (23.5%). Total gains come in at $55,710.01. Total losses are $15,128.80 with a net gain of $40,581.21
Compared with previous years, my performance is well-below average as well as the sheer number of trades. My holding time has also significantly declined and so far this year I've been sitting in cash more trading days than any other time. In addition, with the exception of 2001, this is the first year in 7 years I haven't been in double-digit figures by August. Year-to-date, my trading portfolio is up +5.4%.
So, what am I doing wrong? I don't think that's the really the right question, but I will throw out a few possibilities. They include the following:
1) Failure to capitalize. A poor decision to prematurely close a precisely-timed and correct position in late April in the QQQQ. If I had held and sold that position today, that one trade would have netted a +15% return or $77,550.00. Following that, my confidence factor took a nice-sized dent and I still struggle with the fact that I had plenty of opportunities to put the position back on, but failed to out of stubbornness and timidity.
2) Lack of focus. My inability to focus solely on trading due to both personal and professional obligations. If I had my mind and eye in the game more than writing a book, golfing, vacations, this website, home renovation projects, community service, etc., I'm sure the bottom line would have been bigger. After all, the market gives you what you put into it. Unfortunately, I enjoy all of these things and no matter how much I love the market and trading in general, I refuse to give these things up. But, I will work harder to manage my time more effectively in the second half of the year.
3) Sitting in cash. I need to find better ways of managing my sizeable cash position, even when I have a neutral opinion on the market. I've been exploring ways to do this and I think once I implement some new tactics, that should help out quite a bit.
4) Incorrect position sizing. Simply put, I need to put more money to work on winning positions.
5) Too much day trading. When my trading portfolio significantly underperforms my buy-and-hold, mostly passive retirement account, I know that I'm not holding positions for the right amount of time and/or that I'm taking on too many risky positions.
While I could certainly add another popular one (especially among losers), such that the market has been more challenging this year, that is only a lame excuse and not a reason for mediocre performance. Every market is challenging in its own way and while traders do frequently complain (me included) about the tape, the simple fact is that the market is ALWAYS this challenging. And, truthfully, if it weren't, I probably would have decided to do something else for a living. If trading were easy, what would be the point? There's no fun in shooting fish in a barrel.
So, with all of the above in mind, am I going to suddenly significantly change my overall strategy or approach? No way! As any good trader, I will work on all of the identified issues above, albeit slow but sure. Ultimately, I know I'm headed in the right direction and I've been around the block enough times to know that eventually the tide will turn back into my favor as long as I keep working and learning.
Posted by Charles E. Kirk at 11:29 AM in Portfolio | Permalink
My Performance Review
Back by popular request, it is time once again to take a closer look at my performance so far in 2005. So far, I've booked 81 trades. 62 trades have been winners (76.5%) and 19 trades have been losers (23.5%). Total gains come in at $55,710.01. Total losses are $15,128.80 with a net gain of $40,581.21
Compared with previous years, my performance is well-below average as well as the sheer number of trades. My holding time has also significantly declined and so far this year I've been sitting in cash more trading days than any other time. In addition, with the exception of 2001, this is the first year in 7 years I haven't been in double-digit figures by August. Year-to-date, my trading portfolio is up +5.4%.
So, what am I doing wrong? I don't think that's the really the right question, but I will throw out a few possibilities. They include the following:
1) Failure to capitalize. A poor decision to prematurely close a precisely-timed and correct position in late April in the QQQQ. If I had held and sold that position today, that one trade would have netted a +15% return or $77,550.00. Following that, my confidence factor took a nice-sized dent and I still struggle with the fact that I had plenty of opportunities to put the position back on, but failed to out of stubbornness and timidity.
2) Lack of focus. My inability to focus solely on trading due to both personal and professional obligations. If I had my mind and eye in the game more than writing a book, golfing, vacations, this website, home renovation projects, community service, etc., I'm sure the bottom line would have been bigger. After all, the market gives you what you put into it. Unfortunately, I enjoy all of these things and no matter how much I love the market and trading in general, I refuse to give these things up. But, I will work harder to manage my time more effectively in the second half of the year.
3) Sitting in cash. I need to find better ways of managing my sizeable cash position, even when I have a neutral opinion on the market. I've been exploring ways to do this and I think once I implement some new tactics, that should help out quite a bit.
4) Incorrect position sizing. Simply put, I need to put more money to work on winning positions.
5) Too much day trading. When my trading portfolio significantly underperforms my buy-and-hold, mostly passive retirement account, I know that I'm not holding positions for the right amount of time and/or that I'm taking on too many risky positions.
While I could certainly add another popular one (especially among losers), such that the market has been more challenging this year, that is only a lame excuse and not a reason for mediocre performance. Every market is challenging in its own way and while traders do frequently complain (me included) about the tape, the simple fact is that the market is ALWAYS this challenging. And, truthfully, if it weren't, I probably would have decided to do something else for a living. If trading were easy, what would be the point? There's no fun in shooting fish in a barrel.
So, with all of the above in mind, am I going to suddenly significantly change my overall strategy or approach? No way! As any good trader, I will work on all of the identified issues above, albeit slow but sure. Ultimately, I know I'm headed in the right direction and I've been around the block enough times to know that eventually the tide will turn back into my favor as long as I keep working and learning.
Posted by Charles E. Kirk at 11:29 AM in Portfolio | Permalink
Another Blog by Dave � Stock Trading the Getting Things Done Way
Another Blog by Dave � Stock Trading the Getting Things Done Way: "I discovered Getting Things Done a few months ago and like many people have implemented a unique blend of its recommendations into my life. Although the philosophy does help you literally get things done, the most valuable benefit from using the system in my mind is stress removal. The stress that I was able to rid myself of was not �jump off a bridge� stress, but the stress of remembering what tasks I had to do - stress I didn�t even realize
Great Info!
Great Info!
mertner.com/allan � Blog Archive � Updated �define word� Firefox plugin
mertner.com/allan � Blog Archive � Updated �define word� Firefox plugin: "Based on lots of user feedback, I have improved the define word plugin for FireFox slightly - please use the comment section to suggest other improvements. The new version 0.3.1 can be downloaded here. "
Another Blog by Dave � Firefox
Another Blog by Dave � Firefox: "A Better Way
I thought I would try my hand at creating a Firefox Extension for doing what I wanted. Enter the Stock Charts Firefox Extension.
I created an extension that lets you select muliple ticker symbols in a web page seperated by spaces, commas, newlines (or all of the above) and then open a tab with a stock chart for each one. By default, you can choose from stockcharts.com, yahoo.com, or bigcharts.com. You can customize these or add your own.
Once the tabs get created, you can easily go to the next tab using the Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts, ctrl-TAB to go to the next tab and ctrl-shift-TAB to go to the previous tab. Use ctrl-W to close the current tab.
Also, of course, this extension isn�t limited to stock charts. You can add a custom item to the menu to take you to any web site you want - maybe to Yahoo!s message boards for each symbol you select or a Google search for each word in text you�ve selected.
Thanks to the Define Word extension which I borrowed from heavily to create this."
I thought I would try my hand at creating a Firefox Extension for doing what I wanted. Enter the Stock Charts Firefox Extension.
I created an extension that lets you select muliple ticker symbols in a web page seperated by spaces, commas, newlines (or all of the above) and then open a tab with a stock chart for each one. By default, you can choose from stockcharts.com, yahoo.com, or bigcharts.com. You can customize these or add your own.
Once the tabs get created, you can easily go to the next tab using the Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts, ctrl-TAB to go to the next tab and ctrl-shift-TAB to go to the previous tab. Use ctrl-W to close the current tab.
Also, of course, this extension isn�t limited to stock charts. You can add a custom item to the menu to take you to any web site you want - maybe to Yahoo!s message boards for each symbol you select or a Google search for each word in text you�ve selected.
Thanks to the Define Word extension which I borrowed from heavily to create this."
Top 10 Most Practical Blogs for Entrepreneurs
Top 10 Most Practical Blogs for Entrepreneurs: "Top 10 Most Practical Blogs for Entrepreneurs"
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Top 10 Most Practical Blogs for Entrepreneurs
Top 10 Most Practical Blogs for Entrepreneurs: "Top 10 Most Practical Blogs for Entrepreneurs"
Another Blog by Dave � Stock Charts Greasemonkey User Script
Another Blog by Dave � Stock Charts Greasemonkey User Script: "As , I look at an awful lot of stock charts. When I run across a ticker symbol on a web page that I’d like to view the stock chart of, I used to have to copy the symbol to the clipboard and then go to stockcharts.com and paste it in their form. This gets tiresome when you’re viewing more than just a couple stock charts.
A Better Way"
A Better Way"
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