Dear Diary,
2006 was my first year of full-time trading. It has been great and I have learned a lot and I didn’t lose any money. It has been hard, but hard in a good way - it is nice to feel challenged. And free.
I traded with a prop firm in 2006 and in 2007 I will be trading on my own.
In 2006 I day traded stocks and in 2007 I may leave that to an ATS while I try out trading futures. Trading futures is something that I will be experimenting with in 2007.
What is appealing to me about futures is that I can day trade with a large amount of leverage without the risk and fees of a prop trading firm.
I would like to take this occasion to remind myself of the reasons why I quit my regular job and decided to be a trader:

1) I am not satisfied with the mediocrity of that life - a job I don’t love, a mediocre salary, little freedom, little challenge, and little creativity
2) I love to trade and I love the markets. I love the patterns in the chaos. I love competing against the world. I love using my brains. I love the feeling that I am taking more advantage of my potential.
3) I want to win big. I don’t want mediocrity. I’d rather take a risk and lose and have less than to not try for it all.
4) A lot of people in my family are poor and I’d like to help them.
5) Money isn’t everything - happiness is everything. The Dalai Lama even says so.

I wish everyone good luck in 2007 - even those on the other end of my trades.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007 at 1:02 am and is filed under stocks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.