This isn't my "real" post, by the way. I just wanted to toss off a comment-cleaner and dispense with something that's on my mind.
Iggy dispatched a troll last night who hopped on to the comment section to bellyache that he had lost money by following this blog. Errr, first off, no one should base their trades on anything but their own decisions. One can garner ideas from anywhere – – blogs like this, CNBC, the newspaper, friends, alien space messages – – but the analysis and execution is your own. If you make money, terrific; I get no credit. If you lose money, that's too bad; I get no blame.
Slope is, first and foremost, about the community. I didn't intend it that way. I started the blog to just yack about my trading and share my thoughts with an audience of pretty much zero people. Over the years, Slope has grown into a widely-followed blog, and its community – – enabled by the custom-made comments system which I designed and financed – – thrives 365 days per year. There are plenty of blogs with more traffic than Slope, but I doubt there's any trading blog that rivals its comment traffic and dedication.
One remark from the troll in particular irked me, though. He stated that I had been talking about how great I had been doing over the past ten weeks. What nonsense! Yes, I made money in August and September, but if anything, I have castigated myself mercilesly for not having taken better advantage of those months. Psychologically, I was so shell-shocked from the nightmare that ran from September 2010 to June 2011 that I just didn't have the gumption to go whole-hog shorting.
So let me be clear:
+ My last really good month was last May (!). That's probably the last time I beat my chest about how well I was doing.
+ My last really good extended period was latter 2008 and early 2009. As a drama-queen permabear, this probably comes as no surprise.
+ I have been doing OK, but only OK, for the past few months. I wish I had been much more aggressively short during the late-summer tumble, and I wish I had been aggressively long starting early this month. Last time I checked, my wishes were worth even less than Lester's trading account. What I'm most proud of this month is simply not getting my face ripped off by the Merkel-Sarkozy non-reality rally.
In any case, lest any of you be deluded into thinking I've been running around saying how I've been vacuuming up money left and right, and thus leading to temptation to try to "follow" my trades, I hope this post disabuses you of this completely spurious notion. I am in, and have been, in caution mode, and believe me, it shows.
