After trading for quite a long period of time and getting all sorts of notifications for my orders, I finally decided that I needed a break from trading from late last month. Though it was refreshing, I also felt a sense of loss when I stopped trading actively for the past few weeks. Besides the loss in trading income, I also feel that I feel less attached to my holdings. The unending need to monitor my stocks also lessened significantly and suddenly, all the anxiety and excitement also dropped. So was it a good experience? The short answer is yes because I finally realize that my efforts to extract every bit of upside from the market can sometimes be overly taxing on my mental health and thus the profit I make can also be too costly at times. That is the reason why I am writing this week’s post so that I can share why I got to the point that I saw no other way than to take a month off from trading.
You get really upset sometimes when you trade
Yes, needless to say, I was extremely upset with the market as some of my counters were weighing down so hard on my gains that I felt that a bulk of my past efforts were eroded. Though trading helped to secure some short-term profits, for the time being, my paper losses started to take their toll on me overall as a trader and as a person. it was at that point that I feel that if I were to continue, I was going to hit the worse emotional meltdown in my life. Therefore, I took my chance as the world was consolidating and went on for a long-awaited break. After close to 4 weeks, I did not feel bad or lazy, in fact, I still manage to trade every now and then and make some small but sizeable profits from some of my counters.
Markets do not cooperate most of the time
Trading feels like constantly dealing with a bunch of unreasonable bosses. First of all, every boss demands your attention and effort to study their businesses and make the best moves according to both business fundamentals as well as market sentiments. The outcome of your effort will also immediately result in a fluctuation in your shares value of their businesses. This impact is accentuated when you are managing many counters at once. I assure you that it will get way worse when the whole market decides to plunge uncontrollably without much warning. Those are the days when nothing makes sense no matter how you look at it.
Money earned from trading is usually unable to cover our ”mistakes”
The more you trade, the more you will start to realize that you are never going to cover the losses of some of your counters, and the gains from greener counters are hardly consistent since you are supposed to sell and buy back when there is a chance. I guess, this is the unspoken reality of trading and that is that you are not going to get much richer from doing it. Whereas, all you are getting is “free cash” from your holdings if you diligently make reasonable moves in the market resulting from spikes and dips occasionally using sound strategies.
Closing Thoughts
Now that I am back in the market, the STI is still in flux as the US economy takes a hit from inflation and fear of rising rates. I think it will take at least a few weeks before the market moves significantly again. By then, I am unsure where opportunities will be for trading but all I know is that I will be a little more prepared and a little more confident to deal with what’s ahead.
