(NOTE: I had actually composed this for New Year's Eve, but it's so dead quiet, and guest contributors have been totally invisible, so I'm going to go ahead and deploy it now. Good night – Tim).
Today finishes up 2011, and I'll be spending the entire day traveling back home. The market is closed anyway, and I imagine most folks are doing things besides reading finance blogs, but I thought I'd put up a post with a few parting words for this year.
I took a look back at my final thought for 2008, which was a glorious year for me as a trader. Not surprisingly, I was in a terrific mood:
The next year was great (for the first half) and not-so-great (for the second half), thus, my closing post:
And 2010 pretty much flat-out stunk from end to end….
So it's been a long time since I've been really pleased with how I'm meshing with the market. 2011 had plenty of ups and downs (in fact, the market seemed to have nothing but ups and downs – – far too frequent, and far too jarring).
I think I deepened my knowledge quite a bit as a trader in a number of areas, particularly:
+ Intermarket analysis;
+ How governments actually go about affecting currency prices;
+ The importance of sentiment;
+ How money flows broadly to and from broad classes of instruments (bonds/equities);
+ That cash really is a position!
More important than any of this, though, I learned about loyalty – – particularly the loyalty a handful of people have shown to this blog.
Early in 2011, there was an exodus of a lot of long-time Slopers based on some behavior that I didn't do a good job tamping down. They felt betrayed by an environment that they had grown to enjoy, and they voted with their feet. In spite of profuse apologies on multiple occasions on my part, they have been steadfast in their absence.
Two particular individuals, though, have stood by me through thick and thin – Iguanadon and MarketSniper (more commonly referred to as Iggy and Dutch). They both supported me through hard times, helped guide me (or, when needed, scold me) through the ups and downs of this community, and – day in and day out – they've been here.
Slope is, by and large, about the community, and Iggy and Dutch have been the glue that's kept a lot of this place held together. I am very, very grateful to them both for the longevity, loyalty, and good nature of their presence here. Thank you, both.
I would also like to express my gratitude to the many outside contributors that have added so much value and knowledge to the blog. Springheel Jack in particular, whose morning posts are what starts us all of each trading day, have been a crucial component of the blog.
It sure would be nice to end a year and think, "wow, I'd love to be able to have a year like that again", instead of "thank God that's finally over." I wouldn't mind if 2012 was glorious, or even just plain old good. But, on the whole, 2011 was pretty decent to me, and I think that I'm probably a better person and a better trader now than I was a year ago.
Thank you, Slopers, for being here. There are a lot of changes coming to Slope in 2012 – – good ones, I think you'll find – – and I'm looking forward to making Slope's 8th (yes, 8th!) year its best ever.
Happy New Year, and Be Safe!
– Tim Knight
