Over the weekend, I had been happily effused in mint julep elation while at a Kentucky Derby event. I know absolutely next to nothing about horse-racing, but every year, my friend and I would take this time to show off our colourful hat collection that on any other occasion, we would not otherwise be able to do so.
Suffice to say, after rubbing elbows with directors and lawyers whilst indulging in conversations about the virtues of cinematic life, followed by more partying and cocktails; the weekend tradition continued with mimosas at Sunday brunch.
On Monday morning, rising at the crack of dawn, I had an acute headache. The sort of headache that said not to get up. There was a distinct voice in my head to nurse my hang over and lie down, but I did no such thing. Sleep was for pussies. Then I made my second mistake for Q2: on a whim, I dumped my Google stock early, the one I had caught like a pouncing tiger and bought at 524.40, to dump all of it at 531. What was I thinking? Early on Friday, Google had been consolidating more than usual, slow to move, and I had considered dumping it to exchange with another stock, but then on Sat, I had a vivid dream not to do so. Most traders probably don't pay attention to their dreams, however, I keep a careful log, because a lot of what I absorb during the day I won't fully process until my mind falls asleep, allowing me to have access to all of my brainpower, and being able to perceive an event that has not completely consciously registered yet. In actuality, I had analysed that Google would surge to 717 by Sept.
It ended up being a tiny gain, but I was disappointed in myself for making the same mistake twice- dumping a stock too early because I was getting cold feet. The previous 3 Mondays ago at this time, I had done the same thing- woken up with a hangover on Monday, and dumped all my Gold stock. Of course, I had caught Gold early on, and had already met my target price, but again, the lack of sufficient sleep had caused me to overthink my position and dumped it before it would surge 5 more dollars without yet any candlestick formation of an impending downtrend. In actuality, my exit in Gold wasn't terribly bad, and I had actually only exited a week early, with a hefty gain, but I was really annoyed with myself for having made the same mistake twice in one month.
After reassessing a potential re-entry into Google, I had surmised that I would have to be patient this time, and enter when there was a distinct signal to do so, and not pull out prematurely before it matured. Currently I was focusing on the tech sector, being that my favourite commodities were all in consolidation, and I wasn't the type who liked making 50 cent moves, I liked making 20 dollar moves and holding onto a position for a few months. After some self-examination, I decided that I only really needed to up at the crack of dawn when I was in buying mode. There's something about morning glories in which I had the trigger finger to sell, especially after imbibing one too many cocktails. I didn't need to spend all my time trading, as I considered strategy more important than making high volume trades per day. Besides, I was transitioning into investment banking, and I had to spend more time
Lesson learned: No Trading on Mondays. More Sleep. Enjoying life instead of stressing over minor details.
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