Results of the Coin Flip Forex Demo account

So the results are in....

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

The savings account is almost to its first goal of the year of $1,000 emergency funds. The trading account needs its next goals mapped out and I do so here.

In the video I used the term "live" a bit too much so want to be sure everyone is clear about my plans for the Forex trading account.
February: Test different technical analysis tools. Do some test trades.
March: Finish testing and come up with a trading strategy combined with our existing money management trade rules. Further testing done.
April: Reset demo account funds to $1,500. Start with a new trade record of 0 trades, and implement the trade strategy keeping track of trades similar to what was done for the Coin Flip account.
May: Continue testing and refining strategy.
June:  Continue testing and refining strategy.
July: Continue testing and refining strategy. If having consistent profit then can go live with real money with the existing Trading Account funds.

As I mentioned in the video, while most of the deposits go into the Investing account there will still be plenty of trading going on.



Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Week 40 update and funding your portfolio

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

Weekly Activity
$74.96 deposit into Trading
$50 deposit into Investing
$100 deposit into Savings
$1.68 dividend from ERF


Model Portfolio Totals

Trading Account: $961.09
Estimated Monthly Income: $0 (Not ready to trade until Phase 1 completed)
Max amount in Forex trade (50% of account): $442
Max loss per trade (1% of account): $9.61
Portfolio stop (3% account): $28.83

Investing Account: $2021.66
Estimated Monthly Income: $6.84 ($0.133 from DRIP shares)
Stock
     ABT: $0.71 income/month
     WMT: $0.53 income/month ($0.003 from DRIP shares)
Energy
     ERF: $1.73 income/month ($0.041 from DRIP shares)
REITs
     O: $1.08 income/month ($0.018 from DRIP shares)
Bonds
     JNK: $1.65 income/month ($0.051 from DRIP shares)
     PCY: $1.13 income/month ($0.020 from DRIP shares)
Maneuvering Cash: $500

Savings Account: $1,200
Emergency: $900
Portfolio Protection
     Trading Account: $50
     Investing Account: $250
CDs: $0
Precious Metals: $0



Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Psychology of Emotions: 4 - Anger

The two easy emotions that can disrupt our trading and investing are out of the way, Greed and Fear. Its time to talk about the next one...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

Anger can be a powerful negative emotion that takes over our trading and investing. Greed and Fear can have a back and forth argument with logic with the "yeah but..." examples from those videos. Anger though can prevent the discussion in your mind from coming up at all by blocking you from thinking you are doing anything wrong to question in the first place.

It is critical for us as investors and traders in the forex or commodities or whatever it is you trade to start analyzing and dealing with emotions and money together. Finance is extremely math based and that can turn it into a robotic system. Technical analysis has its indicators, trend lines clearly showing make or break lines for entries and exits. Fundamental analysis has a ton of ratios and formulas to evaluate and judge strength and weakness. Yet neither of these two are going to click the mouse button to enter a trade. It is the human being, emotions and all, that does it.

Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Quick Trading update

Its probably not a good thing that the coin came up heads and I get into a long EUR/USD trade immediately after a 92 pip 2 hour run. I expect this one to be over very soon but I take solace in the fact that I wouldn't have gotten into this trade on my own.

On the other hand the markets have been known to be crazy from time to time.

On a more positive note I noticed something this morning I wanted to share...
Keep in mind Rule #4 from the Rules of the Model Portfolio
"Rule 4: The portfolio is organized into 3 accounts: Savings, Investing, and Trading.
These 3 accounts play off of each other's strengths and weaknesses."

Now take a look at the different accounts...
Trading: Coin Toss demo account total losses -$6.36
Investing: Average monthly income estimate: $6.83

What a great example of portfolio management. Even with a  troublesome 25% trading accuracy rate the portfolio is still positive for the month.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Week 39 Update

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

I hope everyone is aware I being grossly exaggerating what would happen with Europe and Iran to emphasize a point. That if one really wants to, there is always a catastrophic reason to not make an investment.

Also as a point of clarity, I did not go all in the stock market in April 2009 and picked a near bottom. No, I moved from a heavy cash position to a less heavy cash position to add to some stock positions I had held throughout the 2008 crash.



Weekly Activity
$100 deposit into Investing
$1.08 dividend from O
4.4478 shares of ABT purchased


Model Portfolio Totals

Trading Account: $885.13
Estimated Monthly Income: $0 (Not ready to trade until Phase 1 completed)
Max amount in Forex trade (50% of account): $442
Max loss per trade (1% of account): $8
Portfolio stop (3% account): $26

Investing Account: $1,958.05
Estimated Monthly Income: $6.83 ($0.122 from DRIP shares)
Stock
     ABT: $0.71 income/month
     WMT: $0.53 income/month ($0.003 from DRIP shares)
Energy
     ERF: $1.72 income/month ($0.030 from DRIP shares)
REITs
     O: $1.08 income/month ($0.018 from DRIP shares)
Bonds
     JNK: $1.65 income/month ($0.051 from DRIP shares)
     PCY: $1.13 income/month ($0.020 from DRIP shares)
Maneuvering Cash: $450

Savings Account: $1,100
Emergency: $800
Portfolio Protection
     Trading Account: $50
     Investing Account: $250
CDs: $0
Precious Metals: $0


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Abbott Laboratories (ABT)

So what is that "perfect example of a dividend company" that I invested in for the Model Portfolio?

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

As is pretty typical with most investments in the early 2000s, ABT was overpriced. Perhaps some think that between 2001 to 2010 there was no value given by ABT.
Well if you pay over $50 for something valued at $25, yes it is going to take awhile for you to make a profit if you bought shares of ABT. But in buying those shares you gain all rights and privileges that come along with it including dividends.

During that time period they paid out $11.93 in dividends. Thats not too shabby.

Look at the bond comparison in the second screenshot looking at only the income portion. A fixed income product, U.S. Treasuries will pay 1.9% for 10 years. If we total up the growing dividends of ABT and find the average yield on cost? 4.9%. The last estimated year in 2020 will be 6.9% yield on cost.

A comment on Fastgraphs. I am not an affiliate of them. I get no money, special discounts, or anything from them. Its a service that saves me a lot time I would be normally doing anyone in my investing research. And at $10/month its something that an investor on a tight budget might be able to handle.

ABT is definitely an example of why I get excited about dividend investing. Let others think its a worthless no growth stock.

Chart examples are from Fastgraphs.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Fastgraphs.com

I want to share a dividend investing valuation tool I use...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

So we have a valuation tool to add to the way we evaluate stock. The black line for price, orange for earnings, light blue for dividends and dark blue for historic P/E. I really like the ease of use once you get used to it. Is the black line below or equal to the orange line? Great then buy.

My other methodology determines how I pick stock. Fastgraphs and other tools determine at what time and price will I be buying them.

I am hesitant about most subscription based financial services. Most of the time its outrageously expensive for the person starting out that doesn't have a lot of money. This one though I felt offers a good service at a great price. Let me tell you, when you build up a watch list of 30+ stock you have to find a way to crank through them quickly.

Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Interesting start to the week for demo trading

The market giveth...

I logged on this morning to see if yesterday's long trade finally got stopped out and found this...

A full 100 pip $11 win was a nice addition. It helps overcome the psychological draw down of the more numerous but smaller losses. We can see a whole lot of nothing happened yesterday in the EUR/USD until later in the evening.

The coin came up heads again and you'll see the profit stop (pink line) and the trailing stop (purple line). Not the manliest of colors I admit however

The market taketh away...
I came back from walking the dog to close things up and I was stopped out for a near full 47 pips, -$5.52.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Week 38 Update and a whole lot of activity

Ironic that in a video where I describe the activity level of the Model Portfolio is taking more time from the learning aspect and more into maintenance, that I am having limited time Monday morning to make, edit, upload, and process the weekly video before I need to leave for work. This morning was not successful in that. I think I am going to need to switch it to Sundays.

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

As I mentioned in my last entry on Weighting, I have added a weight by income column for the Investing account spreadsheet. This will highlight a concern that dividend income investors need to keep in mind. My current concern isnt with the difference between ERF and WMT but in my bond position. Between PCY and JNK I have 45% of my income coming in from bonds.  Not a big issue since that will be resolved with future positions, 10 new ones coming up this year. That will smooth out the weights.

For trading I split the demo trading spreadsheet profit/loss column into two separate ones. This was to make the formulas a bit easier. Because the profit and loss was in the same column I could not easily calculate them automatically. Now I can. More importantly to me though is that I figured out the formula for calculating the required accuracy I need vs my current risk/reward ratio. This will show more the relationship between risk/reward and accuracy and how they work together.

The profit right now for trading isn't in actual dollars even for fake dollars in a demo account. Its in gaining experience and tools to carry forward.


Weekly Activity
$100 deposit into Savings


Model Portfolio Totals

Trading Account: $885.13
Estimated Monthly Income: $0 (Not ready to trade until Phase 1 completed)
Max amount in Forex trade (50% of account): $442
Max loss per trade (1% of account): $8
Portfolio stop (3% account): $26

Investing Account: $1,861.14
Estimated Monthly Income: $6.11 ($0.118 from DRIP shares)
Stock
     WMT: $0.53 income/month ($0.003 from DRIP shares)
Energy
     ERF: $1.72 income/month ($0.030 from DRIP shares)
REITs
     O: $1.07 income/month ($0.014 from DRIP shares)
Bonds
     JNK: $1.65 income/month ($0.051 from DRIP shares)
     PCY: $1.13 income/month ($0.020 from DRIP shares)
Maneuvering Cash: $600

Savings Account: $1,100
Emergency: $800
Portfolio Protection
     Trading Account: $50
     Investing Account: $250
CDs: $0
Precious Metals: $0


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Weight and Diversification

With the holiday dinners, baking, and cookies done its time to talk about weight...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

Weight by income is something I not seen discussed before. Awareness of it could well be more important then weight by position size for a dividend investor wanting to live off of their income.

The Model Portfolio is still very young with only 5 positions. Do I balance out he weight right now? If I am to have 25 position in Phase 2 of the Investing Account then I have plenty of time because at that point ERF should only be a 4%-5% weight. It will still be a lot higher then WMT which would probably only have a 1.5% but the risk to me would be limited.

But could one fix this and get the weight by income balanced? To do that right now I would have to have about a $850 position in WMT.  Keeping everything else the same that would not only mean 6 more deposits going to WMT but that would push its weight by position over 30% and cause a new problem.

Apart from waiting and letting diversification lower the risk there is also dividend growth that will help. Over the years, WMTs 17% growth will catch up to ERF and the other high yield positions.

Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Reviewing the Coin Flip account

Yesterday morning I made a video as I was reviewing my demo Coin Flip account and decided to make a video on it...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

Analyzing my trades individually and then collectively is important to me. What story do they tell? Am I getting out of trades too early or too late. Is my stop loss at the right size to protect the account. Am I missing something.
Most experienced traders I have talked with state the importance of this post trade review. Its not unlike how sports coaches reviewing tapes repeatedly to see where the  mistakes were.

This video was made yesterday morning from the time of this blog entry. Youtube took far too long to process my video for me to stick around and wait. So when you watch it keep in mind it will not have the same stats as on the trading page.

In the video I misspoke that a $3 would be 0.33% loss. Based on a $1500 account that would actually be 0.20%. A tiny difference in and of itself but if my weekly cut off was a 2% portfolio stop the difference turns from 6 losing trades into 10 losing trades. Not so small a difference now.

I bring this point up for a reason beyond public admittance of a mistake, which I do feel is important. I bring it up because when analyzing our numbers there are so many ways to look at it, even in this small statistic. If I can do 6 failing trades before I stop I could do one each morning and not hit my portfolio stop regardless off accuracy. At that point I would not need a stop. I would still have one in case of a string of large losses however if my averages hold I wouldn't stop trading. So I have room to increase the stop loss here to fit my account. Or I could increase the order size for bigger winners and bigger losers.

On the other hand with 10 losing trades I know open up the possibility of doing a trade in the morning and a second one of the day when I get home. My average time in a trade is 12 hours so its possible.

Just a few more ideas on what information we can not only find in our trading system but in what we do with that information.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Week 37 Update

JNK tried to pull a fast one on me and the beginning of the Coin Flip account...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

Here are the payments for JNK over the past couple years. You can see what I meant by that worrisome trend.. JNK Historical Distributions / Share

1-2010 $.36
2-2010 $.34
3-2010 $.33
4-2010 $.32
5-2010 $.31
6-2010 $.31
7-2010 $.31
8-2010 $.31
9-2010 $.30
10-2010 $.28
11-2010 $.28
12-2010 $.27
1-2011 $.29
2-2011 $.25
3-2011 $.25
4-2011 $.25
5-2011 $.25
6-2011 $.25
7-2011 $.25
8-2011 $.24
9-2011 $.25
10-2011 $.23
11-2011 $.23
12-2011 $.24
1-2012 $.21

Back when I first invested in JNK back in July we saw several months of $0.25/month and I had thought things stabilized. I'll have to keep a close eye on future payments.

When I last calculated ERF's yearly payment I looked off of their website to get the past 12 months and used what they called the "2011 Dividend Payment Schedule". One would think that would be for 2011 but it actually shows 13 payments and thusly my estimate was too high. That was corrected on the spreadsheet.
What actually got me to notice it was the fact that I was comparing the Week 36 numbers to today's I noticed ERF had a really big jump in its estimated payment for no reason. Oil hasn't jumped that much that would have impacted their revenue and they didn't have any new oil rigs start.  Again, its about truly knowing  what you are invested in. I looked for an error on my part and found it.

Weekly Activity
$100 deposit into Investing
$1.58 dividend from WMT
$1.45 dividend from JNK
$1.75 Long term capital gain from JNK



Model Portfolio Totals

Trading Account: $885.13
Estimated Monthly Income: $0 (Not ready to trade until Phase 1 completed)
Max amount in Forex trade (50% of account): $442
Max loss per trade (1% of account): $8
Portfolio stop (3% account): $26

Investing Account: $1,863.55
Estimated Monthly Income: $6.11 ($0.118 from DRIP shares)
Stock
     WMT: $0.53 income/month ($0.003 from DRIP shares)
Energy
     ERF: $1.72 income/month ($0.030 from DRIP shares)
REITs
     O: $1.07 income/month ($0.014 from DRIP shares)
Bonds
     JNK: $1.65 income/month ($0.051 from DRIP shares)
     PCY: $1.13 income/month ($0.020 from DRIP shares)
Maneuvering Cash: $600

Savings Account: $1,000
Emergency: $700
Portfolio Protection
     Trading Account: $50
     Investing Account: $250
CDs: $0




Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Investing account update

Some important observations for the investing account I wanted to bring up in a text only blog entry. No video due to things about to get mathy...

Walmart WMT finally got its first dividend in the Model Portfolio. It seems like I purchased it a long time ago and it had 0 DRIP shares. So whats the big payoff? $1.58 a quarter. A bit anti climactic seeing as how ERF and JNK pay more then that each month. So why bother with Walmart with its 2.5% yield when I could be loading up on JNK at 7.5% and ERF at 9.7%?

It has to do with the other half of dividend investing. The growth part.  WMT has a 10 year average of raising their dividend by over 17%. Right now it pays $0.37 per quarter. Assuming it maintains its pattern each year that will get raised. $0.43, $0.50, $0.59, $0.69, $0.81
In 5 years it will have doubled what it pays now. Inflation can be rough but will gas be $6/gallon in 5 years? Will milk cost that much? I do not see prices doubling in that time. This means we will start coming out ahead.
In 15 years when I hope to quit each WMT share today will pay $3.89.
That means my original $250 investment of 4.3373 shares will be making $16.87 a quarter. $67.43 a year.
Thats nearly 27% yield on cost. Again that is without the compounding power of DRIP shares.

Wait a minute. If dividend growth stock increases like that for decades how come we don't have blue chip stocks paying that much now? To pay a $3.89/quarter at a 2.5% yield WMT stock will need to be $622 a share. That doesnt seem possible right? It is if we add in stock splits.  Give 4 stock splits of 2:1 each and we end up with a share price of $38 paying out $0.24 dividends.

For the record I do not expect WMT to continue growing at that pace for the next 15 years.
On the other hand WMT investors 15 years ago with their $12 share price and $0.025 dividend probably didn't expect the values of today.

Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Type of Investments: 6 - BDC

I continue my series on different types of investments...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

Business Development Companies are interesting investment vehicles. On one hand they are an equity: the company issues stock to raise funds to then lend it to other companies. Yet on the other hand isn't it similar to a bond? It is competing with bonds and banks for business of the small companies needing capital.

Like REITs, BDCs have a favorable tax treatment to its income. However they are forced to give out the majority of its profit in the form of dividends to its shareholders. This way the government still gets what it feels is its share.

Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Week 36 Update and the Coin Flip Account

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

Weekly Activity
$100 deposit into Savings
$1.26 dividend from PCY
Updated Yearly Dividend Estimate


Model Portfolio Totals

Trading Account: $885.13
Estimated Monthly Income: $0 (Not ready to trade until Phase 1 completed)
Max amount in Forex trade (50% of account): $442
Max loss per trade (1% of account): $8
Portfolio stop (3% account): $26

Investing Account: $1,763.88
Estimated Monthly Income: $6.03 ($0.099 from DRIP shares)
Stock
     WMT: $0.53 income/month
Energy
     ERF: $1.71 income/month ($0.035 from DRIP shares)
REITs
     O: $1.07 income/month ($0.014 from DRIP shares)
Bonds
     JNK: $1.62 income/month ($0.031 from DRIP shares)
     PCY: $1.09 income/month ($0.020 from DRIP shares)
Maneuvering Cash: $500

Savings Account: $1,000
Emergency: $700
Portfolio Protection
     Trading Account: $50
     Investing Account: $250
CDs: $0
Precious Metals: $0



Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

2011 Year in Review

What a great year 2011 was. I'm looking forward to 2012 being bigger and better...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

Whether its investing or forex trading, I had two common themes in 2011 that kept coming up over and over.

One was portfolio management. Setting up the structure of the accounts and the rules in how money will be used and stored. I've tried using the "pile of cash" method where everything is in an account and you have vague ideas of what amount of money does what. It just didn't work for me primarily because without a high level of structure like I have with the Model Portfolio... its hard to take oneself seriously. Are you wanting to run your portfolio like a business or is it just a hobby? Neither is right or wrong but you might get different results from the two.

The other common theme of 2011 is psychology. As I mention in my video on psychology of emotions in finance, those that are successful in the markets do not have some superhuman ability that allows them to run a 4 minute mile or other feat of strength. They know what to do and when to do it. That "it" is what we need to learn and I believe it to be a control of emotion and a deep understanding of oneself.

These two themes will continue to be important ones as they will be my keys to success.



Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.