TIME TO RECHARGE THE BATTERIES, GET SOME FRESH AIR.

• Posted by chicagosean
• on August 27th, 2010

Wife and I are hitting the road tomorrow in a cheap rental car for a week-long escape to the family cottage along the hard-scrabble shores of one of America’s greatest natural resources – Lake Erie.

This will be the longest vacation we’ve taken together since our honeymoon, 9 years ago.

Looking forward to some reading on the beach, hiking, exploring, and relaxing. Or none of the above. Who knows? We have no plans, and we’re just gonna do whatever we feel like doing.

It’s gonna be great to get away and have new vistas to gaze upon as I take time to reflect on my trading up to this point this year. To review what I did right and how can I repeat more of that? As well as to dissect the many wrong moves I made and learn the lessons from those. I’ll be bringing my trading journal along with me as a great study aid.

The biggest question in my mind that I am going to attempt to seek answers to during this vacation is: Is my greatest flaw as a Trader my persistence in trying to create consistently profitable systems/strategies for single products – rather than focusing on individual macro trading opportunities that can appear in any market at any time?


I’m asking myself this question now because my best period of performance so far in 2010 was when I made a macro call in April that the S&P was ripe for a pull back and volatility was too low not to take advantage of from the long side. I began positioning my portfolio in April for this thesis, took a little bit of pain but withstood it due to my conviction, and then was handsomely rewarded beginning in the days leading up the May “flash crash” and lasting until about July 1. While the percentage gains for my account during this period were tremendous, more importantly it felt immensely satisfying to make a call, build a position around this call, and then reap the fruits of this effort.

I’d like to do more of that and hopefully this vacation will give me some new perspectives on how to achieve this goal.

After today, expect blog posts to be non-existent until we return after Labor Day. Have a great holiday!

The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.

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