Ending The Month In Style

If you've been reading along, then you know that there was a long dry spell that I endured prior to this recent flush of success. In fact, the start of this blog (in March) coincided directly with my first ever negative month of trading. So if you've been here since the beginning, you haven't known me to be successful yet.

Let me tell you, it hasn't been easy.

At the end of May, I wrote a depressing post about working in a gray cubicle again...

At the end of June, I was more or less at the end of my rope and I declared July to be a pivotal month. For the record, I still like the word "Philosophistal."

As of last Monday, I was still down a few thousand dollars for the month. Never would I have guessed that the market was about to freak out and that I would finally get my shit together all at the same time. As it stands, I ended up pulling over $20,000 net out of the market in the last week. That's double what I had made for the first 6 months of the entire year.

I think that the number one thing that helped me get my game back on track (besides the market freaking out) was talking with my risk manager. Setting a tight loss-limit on my account each day freed me up from worrying about losing money and made me focus more on making money.

But there have been many other things as well that I've come across in these last 6 months which have helped me get my trading back on track. Perhaps I'll have time to reflect upon and write about them when I take off the last couple weeks of August. For one, I have benefited greatly from the traders who read and comment on this site. Were it not for me stumbling across Ray's blog in February I may have never found the Scalper's blog, and I may have never started this blog. And this blog has been a great tool of professional reflection for me.

Also it goes without saying that any trader in a slump needs strong support from his or her family. My family has been great.

Anyway, so July was in fact a pivotal month and for now, I can stop working on my resume and focus on hitting the market again. Like I said last week, I'm not declaring victory over "the slump" just yet. I'm sure I'll have bad days again. However, after getting through these last months I realize that what Bob Dylan said is true, "they say the darkest hour is right before the dawn."

Thanks for reading.

-DT