Calendar Year 2019 Review +$311.

1k

The only way to describe CY19 as a year overall is “disrupted”. As you can see in the table below, I was
away from the screens for a significant portion of the year, trading only ~66% of all possible trading days.
Without sounding like a complete wanker, intraday trading (and probably a lot of things in life) is very similar
to being an athlete, whereby if you don’t practice/train the required amount, you are going to get subpar
results – to my knowledge Allen Iverson and Ben Cousins are the only two athletes that have just been able
to rock up and crush it. I know that I trade my best when I am at the screen close enough to 100% of the
time. Without revealing too much information that frankly you probably don’t give a shit about, this is
something I need to take more seriously moving forward if I want to improve. However, my problem is
balancing life goals (travel, family, girlfriend, mates etc.) with financial goals (trading and waiting for Oz
recession to BTFD). I have found this difficult the last few years, where instability in my personal life
(specifically of the female variety) has made trading that little bit more challenging than it already is. On the
bright side, in 2019, I visited New Zealand, travelled Europe for 3 months, lived in Malaysia for 1 month,
and lived in Bali for 2.5 months. It was great to experience these things; however, I am convinced the lack
of stability and continuity has impacted my trading. All that said, I am reasonably happy with my results this
year despite it not being close to my best, but I know I have a shitload left in the tank as far as upside goes,
which I can hopefully unlock this year!

I endured several challenges this year from a trading perspective, as I have tried to shift out my timeframe
a little bit from a few minutes/seconds to a few hours where appropriate, while also working on increasing
my size in the very best A+ opportunities. As a result, this year has seen an increase in outsized losses
which I have traditionally not been accustomed to, which are primarily due to sizing up in the wrong trades.
I believe my penchant for sizing up in the wrong shit is due to my lack of screen time (among other things).
So, if I can get a better feel for the market by simply being more attentive on a day to day basis, I can
probably eliminate some of these outsized losses because I know when NOT to size up or get stubborn.
This along would add quite a significant boost to my PnL.

Goals for The New Year:

• Try and get back into some sort of exercise routine (bet you didn’t see this coming)
• Increase my participation rate to at least 80%
• Reduce drawdowns from being big in the wrong spots
• Work on establishing a swing/longer term account
o I’ve started dabbling here in the last month, I’ve got small positions in M7T (62c CR), 3DA
(IPO), a larger position in AU8 (bought on screen), & an upcoming copper IPO CBE
o Why the fuck do all my longer term stocks have a number in the ticker?!
o My motivation here stems from lack of returns from bank interest, the last few rate cuts have
made it near pointless holding cash so I might as well get some practice holding stuff for
when its time to BTFD post-recession!
December Monthly Review +$6.6k

December Overview:

At the beginning of December, I really stuck to my goals from the end of November which was to take it easy to
start the month to ensure I am not trading out of a hole, and then once I had built a decent base, look to build on
the foundation. 7 days into the month I was up around $12k, and only had 2 minor losing days, I had pretty much
stuck to the plan to a tee, if anything, I went too easy when there were some decent opportunities. Then as I
began to try and build on the foundation, the opportunities subsided somewhat, and my selectivity declined badly
to the point where I was forcing trades quite a bit and was fast losing patience. This culminated in a 6-day
drawdown which totalled around $20k, and I thought I was in for my first losing month since I started trading as it
was getting very close to Xmas, and news opportunities were rapidly declining.

I was somewhat resigned to losing for the month at this point, and as a result I took my pedal off the accelerator
and just sat and watched, waiting for opportunities. Thankfully by sitting on my hands, I was able to pull off 2
decent trades in AMA and WTC to save my month late and get green. Overall I am pretty disappointed in my
effort this month, I’m not sure I can put it down to anything specific, but if I was forced, I would say a combination
of leaving Bali to return to Sydney meant I had lost my focus somewhat, and then when I returned to Sydney I
was focusing more on catching up with mates and going to long lunches than I was on trading. I really think the
warning signs were there on the Wednesday and Thursday of the 2nd week in December, but I chose to ignore it
and compounded what should have been a 7.5k loss into a 20k drawdown. Either way, I’m glad I was able to
eventually stop the bleeding by taking a step back and improving my trade selection.

Goals for January:

Again, the plan is to ease into it, get my eye back, no need for home runs. If I can build a base leading into
quarterly time toward the end of the month, that should be the time to start pressing. More importantly
though, I want to preserve and build confidence heading into earnings season in February, so laying a
platform in January is quite important.

Anyway, HNY and best of luck in 2020, thanks for reading!