Been a bloody interesting week for me. I started trading around five years back looking for "day trades". I knew bugger all. First trade I made the most part of a couple of grand in a few hours, equivalent to what I was being paid (gross) in a week at the time. Next trade I lost two week's pay. Swiftly stopped trading and started on the books and threads.
A few months later I re-entered the market with a short-term and long-term portfolio strategy. No day trading. I had a great year. The only downer in hindsight is that if I only ever stuck to my first two trades under this strategy (GXY and GMM) – never made another trade – I would have made 10-times the money I have now. At any rate, it was still a profitable year averaging 32% portfolio growth. Next year was similar (thanks to BKL and BAL).
At this point I started looking at shells and found myself on the DT thread for leads. Developed a thirst for knowledge in the technical space for the sole purpose of using technical analysis to monitor sentiment (better time entries and exits in the short-term game). Started making a little each week. In the background I had two significant long term investments and one shorter-term: DRG and PGO and AUZ respectively.
In hindsight, two of the three were ball-tearers. In reality I sold DRG after growing impatient (from average of $0.031 to $0.042 exit) and AUZ I flipped from $0.014 to $0.024. I lumped all the profits into PGO.
The rest is history, really. Upon honest review, I reckon I bloody fell in love with the story and failed to "look left" as
@Cabbie noted at some point (stuck with me).
PGO had a cash-based takeover offer this week. I am technically still in the money, but it is a disappointing result for a long-term (four years) play for me – earned more in my super fund and have pocketed more from a number of individual day trades this past 12-months.
Sharing this for a coupla reasons:
• Do your honest research and bloody look left (up to five years, charts and fundamentals)
• If you are 100% or more up and are thinking of going long, consider cashing out your initial investment
• Despite "popular" belief, Day Trading can actually have a place in your investment strategy, but it requires hard work. Don't think easy bucks will come here – but know that they can easily disappear if you are not on the ball.
Riffing after a coupla tins.
Gonna take a break from trading personally. Get back to fishing and investing more time in a business venture I've long dreamt of but not had the berries to back (like I clearly did with PGO, foolishly).
Thank you to all who have contributed to helping me understand this space better over the last few years, Day, Short, Long or otherwise.
G'luck. Trade smart. Do the bloody homework. Then back yaself in. Don't hesitate.
Alby
