Trading is 90% Mental and Momentum
If you followed my blog you know that I was betting on the wrong site of the market for a while. I closed all position I was holding today and I am currently down 10% from my initial investment. In order to recover my investment I need to earn more than 10% now. 
I am not going to be trading as often as I did going forward because I think I made too many stupid mistakes trading in and out. Just a few days ago I shorted 1000 shares of HIG (Hartford Financial Service) at $14.18 and cover it at $15.83 yesterday.
One past experience told me not to take the short side so easily but another one (I Can’t Help Thinking About my Big Short Trades) told me if I could hold on to my short position I would eventually see profit. I shorted HIG not without reason backing it. HIG is one of the insurer that needs TRAP money. If HIG were able to return to profit so easily it wouldn’t need TRAP money in the first place. Because of this and the later experience I shorted HIG without carefully evaluating the news that bumped HIG (U.S. insurers to get 2nd-quarter investment boost). I might be right and I might be able to see profit if I hold on to the short HIG position till tomorrow. I might be able to see profit on my puts on Starbucks Coffee and US Bank if I hold on to them. But somehow I feel it doesn’t worth to take the risk. Risk on the short side is much bigger but return doesn’t seem to be better. So going forward I will not take the short side any more.
One last thing I want to remind myself again and again: Trading is 90% Mental and Momentum.. It is news driven. My blog’s commentator also reminded me that. I have got to take it seriously.
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Take it easy man. It’s OK to lose money, as long as you find out why you lost and how to limit similar loss to the minimum next time.
The market seems to go the other direction starting today. Not sure. Will see. At current economic situation, I feel many stocks, especially retail stocks are overvalued. For example JWN. Only the market will tell.
Hold on tight bro! You’re still in pretty good shape, I quickly lost 30k after I started trading. Your problem is you are too much into analysis and research, keep in mind you are in huge disadvantage over insiders on the street, they have better access to all information. It took me 6 months and 30k loss to realize I am a lot better off simply scalping, just ride intraday swings of the stocks and that’s it. I don’t care about company numbers or what suckers on CNBC say. I buy dips and sell rips and run. Day trading has nothing to do with investment or holding stocks overnight.
What happened to trading on technicals?
I am just wondering how many day traders can last long enough to self claim a ‘winner’?