Something to think about -- don't fight the trend.
I had an excellent first year investing (from Oct '15). Have been doing nothing but bleeding out since October '16 though. I had a look at the XEC yesterday (microcap index) and yep -- returns have been way too highly correlated to this index.
Have also realised that I would have been significantly better off with a maximum of 1 trade per month. Looking back on all my high conviction buys, roughly half have gone on to many-bags (EMC, RAP, RYG/XPE, S2R, IOT, KPO, SAS). My failed conviction buys were between 0 and -30% (SW1, YOJ, CNW, BDA, MSR, would be a few more). Made nowhere near enough on the good buys because I was overtrading, and wasted far too much mental energy trading stocks that were just bouncing around, hoping to flip them to the greater fool.
Anyway just some perspective and an interesting train of thought. Good to step back and take a birds-eye view of your performance now and again.
