A reader left a comment a few days back that I figured I’d respond and flesh out a bit more:
I have a question for you, but it might be kind of insensitive or painful; if so, please ignore this. I was wondering if you have any kind of emotional response when markets get really wild (I’m thinking of some of the current financial market events). Does it make you miss trading? Or does it make you relieved because that part of your life is over?
I do have a emotional response when the markets are crazy like they have been this week.
It’s relief.
Relief that I’m not up at 5am watching futures markets. Or up til 1am trading the pound during the london forex session.
I’ll admit I have been reading alot of the financial news lately…but I do that now just to be informed. I was a finance major in college. I’ve always been fascinated by Wall Street, and I probably always will be. I just choose to sit on the sidelines now rather than get in "the game"
It’s just not for me anymore. In fact, my view lately is that I doubt I’ll ever invest in stocks again. The risk/return just isn’t as good as investing in my own business, or more importantly right now, trying to pay off my debts.
So, I don’t miss day trading.
But I do sometimes miss that excitement. But not nearly as much as I did say, a year ago.
Maybe I’m growing up, getting wiser, or maybe I’m just getting boring.
But if boring keeps me fed and making money, than boring I will be.
photo by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphunden/
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DK u need to look at my comments on this blog page of yours.
i had said markets would fall down huge.
http://www.debtkid.com/being-content-with-the-mundane#comments
definately very tough to trade right now… almost got wiped out of quite a part of my account last couple days.. but somehow i managed to get out with a small profit.
I know what you mean about the emotions of it… doing a little stock trading right now (see my latest post on TrueCasey.com)… just one stock that they say I’m “married to”. Isn’t it good to marry when you found the “right one”?
Casey, Casey, Casey.
Your little stock was down 22% today.
I think it’s time for a divorce. : )
Thanks for your response, DK.
I totally get that a boring life is quite a bit more pleasant.
Yeah DebtKid… its been a little rough lately out on the marketz. In your day-trading days, did you do a lot of intra-day stuff or trading every couple days/weeks? I’m also curious if you were doing stock or options or LEAPs or what? Perhaps you shared earlier on the blog. I just want to see what exactly you did so I can relate… trading any penny stocks by any chance?
@ Casey – I did mostly intra-day stuff yes. Some swing trading, and there I would use options. I never traded penny stocks, 99% of those are just pump schemes.
But really, Casey. I wouldn’t suggest following in my footsteps. Sell what you have, and invest in what you know. You don’t know stocks. You do know how to write, and build websites….why not invest there?
Yeah I’m not really into stock investing except riding this one investment I got now… because its a gold mining company and investing in gold when anything paper-based is crashing is always a good idea in my opinion. And yes I’ve learned enough about pennies that post of them are pump-n-dumps, but then again there are those few that will make you a bundle if you can find it.
So, I don’t really care about stocks, i’m in it because I want exposure to gold and investing into a mining company will give you more returns than the physical metal (and of course, there is more risk).
But yes, my core competency is web stuff and now i’m learning more and more about internet marketing. Launching my first information product soon.
I’ve asked this on Tweeter, and if you’d rather not say, that’s fine, but….
What kind of business are you doing right now?
@ Casey – just be careful. I do commercial software dev. work.
Thanks for the answer…. used to do write web software in PHP/MySQL environment… can relate to another programmer. Good job on this blog and the search engine rankings you’ve achieved in a short time. (Like “Short Sale”)