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It has been a while since I have posted on FIO, so I thought I'd share an update.
I was going to do a webinar this Thursday, but I won't be able to do that anymore. I've asked @tturner86 to cancel it so take out your anger on me guys!
As the market was slow and my discipline started to slowly fade away from little movement (one can only take so many days with a low range of 30 without going crazy!), I decided to focus on other things in regards to my life plan.
One of the things that I knew I was going to have to address sooner or later, is the need to bring in additional income so that I could grow my trading account. I've always known that I don't have sufficient capital to be able to trade as a career. At least not yet.
However, I have other skills which are quite marketable specially in the city I live in (Calgary, AB, Canada), so that makes things easier for me. These last 2 months I've been focusing my efforts on starting my own management consulting firm. This firm is completely unrelated to trading, and it leverages my previous experience. This allows me to look for clients at my own pace, and still be able to make trading a priority once I have gotten comfortable enough with my clients.
I was very lucky to land a large client a couple of weeks ago and I have started doing work with them on a daily basis.
As my company is new and as the project I'm involved in is quite complex, I have had to prioritize this and completely drop trading for the time being.
I do plan to get back into trading as soon as I am able, but the 'when' is currently undefined as it'll depend on how things play out in the next couple of weeks. Honestly though I hope I can start at least swing trading by the end of this month or beginning of next month.
In regards to the webinar, I have already put together some content as to what I would like to talk about so I've talked to @tturner86 to see if it could be postponed instead of cancelled. I just unfortunately need to prioritize my other business venture at the moment.
I hope you guys can understand my decision and excuse my absence in these last couple of weeks. And honestly thank you to all of those who have commented or sent me messages wondering what happened with me. I should've updated you guys earlier.
Honestly as I'm writing this, I miss being an active member of FIO, so although I won't be trading as much in the next couple of weeks, I might find some time to squeeze in a couple of more non-trading related posts.
If you have sent me a PM I will get back to you later, I'm just a bit overwhelmed with my current venture and need some time to catch up.
Talk to you guys soon!
-SoftSoap
Yesterday's excellence is today's standard and tomorrow's mediocrity
@SoftSoap, your journal has been very inspiring. While I wish you all the best in all your ventures, I do hope you will someday find time to post here!
@SoftSoap Good luck with your new venture! Softsoap, I really enjoyed how you sliced & diced your data, and then made changes based on that. I truly wish the best of success for you in your new venture. Your approach of constantly measuring, taking corrective action, then measuring again, taking corrective action, etc. etc. is a game plan for success. No doubt you will find it in your new venture!
The project I've been working on is actually going live today, so I'll have a lot more time to get back to trading. I'll still be working full time with my existing client but nowhere near the hours I've been doing since May.
This means that starting Sunday I'll be journaling on a regular basis again, though not as much as I used to when I was trading full time.
Trading is something that's still part of my long term plan and I want to make sure I prioritize it. I'll be using FIO as an accountability vehicle as I have done in the past!
As I won't be trading the same way there are some things I need to figure out regarding trading:
What days will I trade?
How long will I trade on those days?
What sort of prep will I do? Weekly? Daily?
Will I commit to my prep even on the days where I know I won't trade?
Will I day trade?
Will I swing trade?
Will I day trade and swing trade?
Will I keep my stop losses and profit targets the same?
Will I need to come up with a way to monitor my trades when I'm not at home?
Will I need to come up with a way to modify and take trades when I'm not at home?
Do my psychology goals need changing?
Will I take trades right away, or will I have a 'no trade' period?
How will I get myself caught up with what's happened in the last few months?
I have a lot of questions that I don't yet know the answers to, so I'll be deliberating these over the course of this week.
It's a bit of a change to go from full time trading to no trading, and back into part time trading. So for those of you who have gone through a change like this before, I would love to hear your story.
I'm honestly very excited to be able to do this again!
Yesterday's excellence is today's standard and tomorrow's mediocrity
What days will I trade?
I should be able to trade 2-4 days a week, depending on when I'm required to be in at work
How long will I trade on those days?
2 days a week I will only be able to trade the first 45 minutes of the session
The other 2 days a week I'll be able to trade the full morning session
These days will switch rotate between Monday & Wednesday / Tuesday & Thursday
What sort of prep will I do? Weekly? Daily?
I need to do a weekly prep all the time, and for the days where I am going to trade, I'll need to do the daily prep as well
Will I commit to my prep even on the days where I know I won't trade?
This depends, but I'll mostly say no to this. There's no sense in doing my prep if I'll be out of my trading office hours before the market opens. On some days I'm required to be in the office for very early meetings to accommodate for clients in Kuwait / Saudi Arabia. Waking up even earlier to put a plan that I know I won't be able to execute would right now put too much physical stress on me.
Will I day trade?
Yes
Will I swing trade?
This I'm not sure yet, I want to say yes but I just don't know yet.
Will I day trade and swing trade?
This will depend on whether or not I swing trade.
Will I keep my stop losses and profit targets the same?
For my stops yes, I'll aim for 4.5-6 pts of losses at most
For my targets, that's going to depend on my strategy
Will I need to come up with a way to monitor my trades when I'm not at home?
To be determined - I don't know yet
Will I need to come up with a way to modify and take trades when I'm not at home?
To be determined - I don't know yet
Do my psychology goals need changing?
Yes they do. Will do this in a new post.
Will I take trades right away, or will I have a 'no trade' period?
I can take trades right away, but only if the opportunity is really good.
How will I get myself caught up with what's happened in the last few months?
I'm not sure. I need to get some of the volume data as I don't have any of that available at the moment.
Yesterday's excellence is today's standard and tomorrow's mediocrity
I've made a bit of changes to my psychology goals. Honestly though I might have to change them again in a couple days / weeks depending on what I will struggle with.