Thanks for the write up @Dazed&confused, always enjoy your and others educated commentary on here. You have prompted me to finally put up a decent post.
I don't post much here, I mostly stick to the DTT as you guys leave me a little in awe and overwhelmed by your intelligence and knowledge in all fields, not just trading. I do very much enjoy reading it though and some grains of knowledge have managed to sink in.
I am posting here because I have started to to do very well with my trading recently. I have been playing around since 2010 but never really got serious until this year due to unforeseen circumstances. I have had plenty of trading books at home but never really got into them, but I had an enforced hiatus from all electronic equipment for 22 days. I used this time to read some trading books authored by Darryl Guppy that I had on hand. This time as I read them I actually understood them, even reading them twice in cases where I wasn't sure, and really took it in. I had no obligations, no work, very little interruptions, and a fairly peaceful environment with the aid of earplugs and headsets.
It is amazing the difference that reading has made. I have made more profitable, educated trades in the last few weeks than I had in nearly 10 years prior. I can take the time to analyze a stock, decide position size, and optimum entries and exits. I am taking profits, rather than hanging on like a pining husband after his wife has left, and waiting for the stock to come to me rather than chasing it. I actually sat down for 10 hours today and downloaded all my trades since 1 January from two brokers and sorted them all into a spreadsheet that I can now keep up to date on a daily basis. It is amazing how the negatives have turned to positives in just the last month. I did set myself a financial goal a few weeks ago to hit by Christmas; hit it on Friday.
I finally have a plan, after 10 years of neglecting it, and am trading by it. It is pretty much a copy of what I have read, but the difference now is I am beginning to trade by rote. I do my scan, do a chart visual, and if I like what I see I will investigate further and apply further tests. Not exactly like Guppy, but based on this. It is working very well. I have to admit to spending too much time on DTT and I did fall for a couple of impulse buys last week but luckily I got out with profit. I didn't just buy on a whim, I still looked at the chart and from my knowledge it was fairly obvious they were going higher.
So, to sum up, those three weeks without internet, phones, computers etc were the best thing that has happened to me in recent times. I was forced to leave my open positions in limbo with no access to them or even knowing how they were going, but it done me good. But also, it brought home to me the importance of stop losses.
I will keep a closer eye on the STT thread and try and post a little more, although it will probably be more to ask questions for a while. I did post on the Boneyard Specials thread, but hopefully I can get enough confidence to post a STT Tip. Thanks.
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