Much Needed Break

Hard to believe it's been two weeks since my last entry here. Well, maybe not - I really do tend to run hot and cold. After the roller coaster ride my last foray turned into, I've used this period of correction for a much needed mental and emotional break from the market.

I've probably devoted about 20% of my usual time my market homework over the last couple of weeks. There are certainly other valid ways to spend time during a correction - reviewing past trades, adjusting rules as needed, doing extra reading - but in my case I think the best thing for me was to take a step back.

My recent mistakes now seem relatively distant, which allows me to proceed with a clear head. In the past I've been overly anxious to put money in the market at every opportunity, and that's cost me. Today we had a follow through day, signaling the start of a new rally. Formerly I would dive in at the first stock that I saw in a new rally. I don't feel that sense of urgency now. My screens are showing some interesting stocks, but I'm suspicious - I'll look them over carefully and see if anything looks sound enough for purchase. I'm tired of losing money.

One other thing I want to spend some time on soon is an improved trade log. My coworker is a successful CAN SLIM investor, and he's made himself a trade log database to track his trades. This blog is less useful for that as it's anecdotal more than statistical. I need to have a firm grasp of exactly what a stock's numbers looked like when I bought it, what it's industry group was doing, what kind of chart formation it had; and I'd like this data to be sortable and filterable so that I can detect any trends. It will take me some time to put this together, but I think in the long run it will improve my results.

-Geoff