Brutal Honesty

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I'm not going to open up the bar today. Sorry, Bo. This just isn't a day to celebrate.

It is, however, a day for some stark honesty……….the deep dark truthful mirror. Because, as traders, we need to be honest with ourselves on a daily basis. The truth hurts sometimes, but pain is good in the long run. Life means suffering, as the Buddha said.

I will start by presenting this paragraph from a post I did this March; I have emphasized a few portions of it.

To my way of thinking, if the market moves to around 770, stabilizes, moves higher, and then pushes past 830.50, that's a very good sign for the bulls. It basically indicates whatever extra "air" had lifted the market quickly from 666 to 830 has been released, and the strength continues. The overhead supply from 800 to 870 is going to take a lot of work to push through, but if and when that work is done, there's going to be a lot of power behind the bulls. A 2009 high of ~1050 is, I think, still in the cards. I sure hope so. It's going to be a total bear-fest if we can get that high.

Now, just in case you think this bullish conviction was just a once-in-a-blue-moon thing, it's not. I have mentioned 1050 over and over and over again, as this Google search illustrates.

So here's the brutal truth for me: my inability to embrace and act on my own excellent analysis was probably the biggest failure for me as a trader thus far in my life. It makes me disappointed in myself, and it diminishes my reputation. But I still am here, day after day, head held high, in spite of my abject failure to execute properly. Outstanding analysis and failure to execute combine to yield nothing.

I'm going to try to be a little more discrete about my account size, but let's just say this – – I hit my peak back in March at a figure we can call 100%, and I've spent the past five months grinding between 100% and 85% ever since (some detractors probably figure I've lost 95% of my account, so I'm sorry to disappoint you goons). I've been creeping toward 85% more and more, and I'm there right now. In other words, I'm at the low end of my range, and that stinks, considering how accurately I "called" what was ahead back in March.

Bottom line: be honest with yourself, day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. Anything else is a fantasy.

So I'm ending the week on a low note. I'm near the bottom of my equity curve over the past five months, and I stare in the face of a prediction that would have been profoundly beneficial to me. The only silver lining to this very big cloud is that 1050 is tantalizingly close.

I only wish that I had in my pockets the profits I would have amassed if I had followed the pathway that I laid out myself.