Trading Update: 20 December 2014

True Profits Earned in 2014 to date: US$38,039.97
Current drawdown from maximum true profit earned in 2014: US$1319.10 
Change from last week: US$1,030.71
Directional stance: Portfolio is 55.56% bullish.

It's been a good week on paper, and most importantly besides locking in some modest gains, the portfolio is finally (at long last, way way overdue, you get the point) aligned with the intermediate trend, which is 2100+ to 2500+ as the next top for S&P 500.

The pullback that I was waiting for certainly did not renege on its promises. It came with a flourish and the markets dived fiercely for a few trading days, hitting sub-2000 lows. It was certainly no wimpy pullback. However, the markets bounced off from the bottom with such a ferocity that by the time we had to concede that the pullback had ended for good (i.e. no more "one more leg down" to squeeze more short profits out of the pullback), quite a good bit of the profits I had gotten from being short during the pullback had been eroded. I did however make some gains from the move up after switching to a bullish stance, hence the drawdown amount is looking pretty docile this week.

On hindsight, I should have booked my profits much earlier on in the week, but as Gordon Gekko said in Wall Street: "Greed is good." I guess not, this time! I'm motivated by greed (to extend profits) until fear (of losing money) overrides the greed (actually like 99.69% of us probably are).

Speaking of Gordon Gekko and trading in the 80s.. interestingly enough the specific counter I trade requires my trades to be placed by phone for some reason. Yup, even in 20152014. Even if my broker claims to offer its clients a state-of-the-art trading platform, with colourful charts, the ability to place complicated trade orders, cutting edge news updates, etc. but at the end of the day yes I have to call in to talk to fumbly traders and scream the names of countries like "SELL 999 UNITS OF ARGENTINA BRAZIL CHINA LIKE NOW!!!!" and wait and prance around my room holding my phone as they take their own sweet time to place the trade while the markets move against me. Really old-school but it makes me feel like one of Gordon Gekko's disciples in the "good old days".

All this talk about Gordon Gekko makes me want to re-watch my favourite trading movie, which very aptly is set during Christmas in the good old 80s - Trading Places! For everyone reading this, please have a good Christmas! and I will see you again next week.