Lost $4611 today in my first day back with serious trading. There wasn’t anything good to trade this morning, so I thought I’d try a different strategy.
Didn’t work.
I didn’t get mad. I didn’t flip out, so that’s something, but I did prove to myself that I can’t discipline myself enough to trade intelligently. I keep risking in “other” strategies, and I keep losing big time when I do that. Today was the worst.
So… I transferred all the money I have left from my brokerages back to my bank account. I uninstalled my trading software programs. I unfollowed the YouTube channels I was following that were stock related.
All told, I lost $8000 (hard cash) in my little stock adventure. I lost probably at least that in lost opportunity cost as well trading when I otherwise would have been fixing cars, so it’s been… an expensive and relatively fruitless venture (a net loss of probably $15-20k (ouch).
I apparently learned to restrain myself a bit in the face of losing money and things not going “right.” So… that’s something.
The money hurts to lose, but like I mentioned the other day, there’s a lot more to it that hits harder and deeper. This feels like yet another major failure in a long line of major failures and leaves me wondering where to from here. This distraction is past. Now… I don’t know.
(sigh)
Time for bed. Good night, all.
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 
Big, hugs, Stephen. You learned so much on this one! On a completely different note, our area has been completely swamped the last few years with homeless people. Whether the reason for the homelessness, or the result of the stresses of life, most are addicted to drugs, caught in the death grip of the streets. Getting off drugs is almost impossible when no one cares. One building company owner lobbied the city to build several communities of modular tiny houses with community cooking spaces and counselors, a physical address to use, etc. All over the country, people are coming up with ideas to help their communities in any way they can. Secret groups are spray painting crosswalks on dangerous intersections in the middle of the night in LA. Residents of Akron Ohio came together to remove paved parking strips and make them community garden strips. There’s so much good to be done! And all it takes is a passionate person with drive. You, sir, are the spitting image of such a person. Canvas your community. Find out the biggest fixable problem. Band heads together and work to fix it! If you can’t find someone with the skills, take a grant writing course. The obstacle becomes the way!
Tish! What an awesome thought!! Wonderful!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 I LOVE IT!!!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Stephen!
YAY FOR TISH!! SHE’S BRILLIANT!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Regarding the trading… I would not necessarily call it a failure. I would call it a good venture well thought out, but embarked on at a time when the stock market is going from bad to worse in a reflection of national and world economic disasters, policies, plagues, and war… I have every belief that under normal stock market conditions, you would have been doing very well. As I understand it, everything has been dropping in response to a perfect storm of negative stimuli. You got caught in the gale, and maybe broke your rules to try to save yourself, but it doesn’t mean you can’t ride those seas very successfully in a future when things have settled back to normal (may it come!)
Also, I don’t see any string of failures… but a string of much much goodness – uncountable goodness and kindness you have given to others across decades… and if you don’t mind belittling yourself by calling it failure, it also belittles the people you did it for… For those individuals that you have quietly helped, comforted, lifted, assisted across the decades, and the many whom you assist now through your successful business — it was a big deal… Thank you for being that kind of Giver… May you feel it yourself… May you have great joy in all the good you have been able to spread and continue to spread to so, so, so many….
I love you Stephen!