I've been wanting to move my portfolio over to Charles Schwab for a while, but now E*Trade's offering monthly market commentary that's actually quite insightful. Plus, it's a real hassle to move assets over to Charles Schwab. The process is supposed to take about a month. I reckon it would be easier to just open a new CS account and start from there.
Here's E*Trade's latest Mid-Year Outlook: Stock Rally in the Late Innings (I like that Rusty guy)...
I don't know who to believe any more - but definitely not AIG.
At least HWD still loves me - a little...
I'm going to need a new strategy, or perhaps just a bit more patience. I need to achieve at least a +9% ROI this year in order to keep pace with last year's performance. So far, I'm only +2.1% - do not laugh! It would definitely be more if I take profit on some of the partial positions where I'm gaining a good double digit profit, but I'm trying to keep a long term perspective here by staying in the trade longer for potentially greater gains. It is rather very telling when your ROA is higher than your ROI though. This bit is definitely funny, but not especially funny if you're the one going through it. My friend told me he's aiming for +8% this year, but he's probably got a portfolio that's about 10 x that of mine. When you've got a small portfolio, you need to aim for much greater returns.
Now that so many of my high-yield bonds are out, a key component of my strategy is off-kilter. I did add two new corporate bonds to my portfolio this year, but I don't expect these to offset the negative impact the few defaults have had on my portfolio.
Another damaging aspect is that my cash reserves are now earning very low interest compared to one or two years back.
Surprisingly, my forex trading is actually OK compared to equities and bonds. That's not saying much, but at least I've managed to slow the downtrend my account has been on. I've been checking the forex market at least twice a day - a few hours into the London session and a few hours into the New York session. I essentially still look for my little black dress setup. Making sure it's couture takes a lot of work (see The Perfect Storm post below).
I was tempted to check out other currency pairs, but then decided against it because I still don't know GBP/JPY like the back of my hand yet. I've got to focus on this pair and really learn how it moves. Right now, I recognise some of its patterns after having been trading it for about nine months.
Keeping my trading journal has been the best decision ever. Even though I don't review it as often as I should, it is definitely beneficial. I've been much more cognizant of my trading mistakes since starting my trading journal. It forces you to look at your trading setups and really understand what it is you should be doing better. I am going to have to do some practice trades though. I've realised that I keep saying the right things but not really doing the right things when it comes to trading. So, if I do a few practice trades where I mindfully go through the right steps, I think it'll start to really pay off.
What would probably be even better is for me to use the downtime when I'm not doing a live trade to do a practice trade. When I don't see my little black dress setup, I just don't trade. But if I utilise this time better and actually do something productive with it rather than reading John Mayer's tweets (always a LOL moment), I just might accelerate my learning even more. What could be better than actually making your own observations about the market and then developing your own theories about how things might pan out? I think that's pretty priceless experience.
Tomorrow's a new day, so I'm going to try to keep my head high!
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