The Emerald Rose

       As I am getting healthier,(and to date have lost 35 pounds in 65days, and actually broke the 200 lb barrier this morning) I seem to feel much better. But then again the way I got to this point was a scary wake-up call. (Speaking of that I have to go back in the hospital for another “procedure” where they are going to slice open my carotid artery on the left side of my neck and “clean it out” from all the “placque” and other yucky stuff causing it to be about 90% blocked. The carotid carries the blood to your brain, so that explains a lot of things for the last twenty years!) But that is not until August 4th, and by then I plan to be 180 lbs or less and in shape (yes,  round is a shape but I’m going for the upside down triangle look)

        I was having a good week until I looked at my checking account and saw it was overdrawn. What with the automatic drafts coming in for monthly bills, I failed to see I had not deposited my expense money from the job this month,..then I realized that I hadn’t deposited it because I forgot to give the boss dude a bill with all the charges! DUH!! See what I mean about the lack of oxygen going to the brain. So I put one together and took it in Friday to work to present to the boss and whine for an immediate check only to find he decided to take another two days off and won’t be back til Monday. So I texted him and told him I need the check no later than 10a.m. Monday morning,….we shall see.

         Got to get back into stock trading I think. The first full month I was “trading” I had an 18% return, which my investor friends tell me is fantastic in this economy. But that was March. Before I went in the hospital I liquidated all my positions “just in case” and because I did not know if I’d be up to monitoring the market the way you need to if you are “trading”. (Point of information here. An investor “investor” puts money into a stock, etc. with the long term goal of leaving it there and watching it grow, albeit three, five ten or twenty years. A trader invests today, and liquidates in short order, two days, two hours, and at most five days,…that be me. You can make money doing this, but you have to stay on top of it, watching the action, being prepared to make a decision and doing some real technical analysis before you by anything and making sure it meets your criteria for making a trade and are pretty sure, or as sure as one can be, that it is going in that direction “currently”. A “Day Trader” on the other hand puts all his money in this morning , buying stocks they have pre-determined to “swing” or have “momentum”, then living for the next six hours with your eyes glued to a real time program on the computer reflecting the second to second movement of the market and your stock.Why glued to the computer? Because by the end of the business day you want to liquidate every position you have with a profit hopefully. The two minutes it takes to grab a cup of coffee from the kitchen can ruin your day. Well I like trading, not as much pressure and if I like a purchase and it’s “running” (trending up and staying there with no sign of resistance) I can leave it there for a while in comfort).

          anyway, I’m loving it because it’s a whole new arena of learning for me. I’m not a “big” trader, but I made about fifty buys and fifty sells in March and turned the 18%. Now that my “ticker” is substantially overhauled and repaired I want to go back to trading, it was fun, and if I can grow it to make a weeks pay (even a small weeks pay) it could be enough that I could just do that fulltime. As I wrote in another blog entry the market is very disciplining, first of all it’s only open Monday thru Friday, from 8:30 am to 3 pm my time. I have to take Saturday and Sunday off from “working it”. It’s like the hundred yard dash, all you have to do is fly like the wind for 100 yards to win. I like the short burst all or nothing push. It also teches you that you can’t cry over spilt milk, what happened today , happened today, tomorrow is a new and different day,….get over it!

        I’m now beginning to feel  “up” to digging into my pile of books I bought on the subject and beginning to be the “grasshopper”. I’ve been all over the Internet searching out the various “On-line Brokerages” and investment companies, like Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade, etc. I settled on TD Ameritrade because of the on-line tools they had available for free to analyze and make buying and selling decisions, and guess what? In an article that came out Friday TD Ameritrade got a five star grade for the best tools available, compared with Schwabs three stars.

       I also believe in “patterns”, therefor graphs are extremely helpful (if I can get the hang of them and recognize what’s going on. To that end I guess I’m going to have to take a course on “charting” to figure it out.

       Now I know a lot of folks just throw up their hands or know someone who knows someone who lost their shirt in the market, but like anything else in life it’s what you set as your “boundaries” for investing, and selling off, and a sense of self discipline to know and read the indicators and not make an “emotional call”.

        Anyway, I can’t think of a better to totally “control your own destiny” so that’s the goal. Surprisingly enough it doesn’t “stress me out” like a lot of  people,….or I’m just stupid.

        I’ll let you know how it’s working out periodically, but that is most definitely my “bucket list” item that I feel will give me a long term peace and stability as far as making enough to cover the bills and stop scrambling.

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