Regrouping

It's been awhile since my last posting. How long, you ask? I'll let you do the math on the dates below. Like with my bank account and taxes, that sort of arithmetic is depressing.

The good news--aside from my absence--is that I'm preparing to get back into the stock market game. I signed up for a demo account on FXCM.com, and for the past two days I've been practicing trading currencies.

My goals have changed a bit since my first post. Making money is important, of course. Like others, I don't want to consistently lose my hard-earned dollars and cents. But I find that goal in the context of the stock market too vague. Instead, I've been thinking of what goals and parameters I can implement on a day-by-day and trade-by-trade basis.

Here they are: (1) Emotions, whether positive or negative, will be confined to the footnotes section of my trading story (i.e., although present and inevitable, they will not determine my trade actions). (2) For every entry, I will have a clear and precise exit strategy, and I will stick to it no matter what. (3) I will stick to one strategy and will not abandon it and jump around until I've demonstrated some mastery of it. (4) I will devote a certain amount of time to my trading daily, but I will not let it consume too much of my daily time. And (5) I will also devote at least 15 minutes per weekday to updating this blog. Writing is just as important to me as learning this new skill.