One of the things I decided to try while on sabbatical was day trading. As I learned during this past week, volatility is a day trader’s friend as some of my picks were up and down over 70% during the week. Most of these picks were related to the financial sector so this was to be expected as this was one of the worst weeks in the recent history of the market.I did okay, not as well as I would have liked, but with the jobs numbers just out today (159k lost in September) everything is relative. Since it seems people are losing their jobs left and right, I appreciate any increase.
While I don’t feel sorry for stockbrokers or i-bankers who regularly get bonuses that are ten times the average American’s salary (32k), I can sympathize. I had two restless nights this week, worrying about some bank in Europe or Asia PAC going under while I slept and wiping out all of my investments. Both times I woke up on the end of significant gains, but I’m not sure it was worth my piece of mind. I also spent hour after hour watching CNBC while modeling scenarios and ticking news on my computer. I had no idea my brain could process that much information at once. I also had no idea your mood could correlate directly to the direction of the Dow but I digress.
I realized that in the end it’s a basic risk reward proposition, and you’ve gotta be in the game…more on my Buffet like exploits to come.
rc
