Update - It's Been a While

I haven't made any updates or posts for the entire month of June and for this I apologize to readers, it's a bit unprofessional on my behalf. Rest assured however, it's not because I blew out my account, but rather, it's because this is somewhat harder than I anticipated.

As of my last update on June 1st, I had been trading for the entire month of May and by the end I felt very mentally fatigued. It's a bit hard to put into words, but overall I just felt a bit stressed and my mind was cloudy and lethargic. I could feel the changes without a doubt. I no longer had that ambition and anticipation of opening up charts every morning at 7 am and being immersed in stocks and finance as I did when starting. In actuality, I felt a bit of an aversion and general apprehension to trading in general and did not look forward to continuing to do it. I think the best word to describe is that it felt a bit like nausea. I've read what happens to others when they don't stop ahead of time - they go on benders, throw precaution to the wind and ramp up the risk, and blow out. That isn't going to be me.

Rather than risk taking decisions with clouded judgement and give back what I earned, I decided to take a break and focus on other things. Don't get me wrong, while I still have a huge passion for this, I needed an outlet to pour my energy into other than this. In the mean time, I've been putting more emphasis on getting back in to shape, seeing friends, learning to cook, reading, teaching  my self a programming language (PHP) and overall doing things to keep busy. I also got a full time job in the mean time starting in July that kind of fell into my lap and I could not pass it up. 

Someone could ask, why stop when on a good run? I believe the answer to be that if I can successfully do this once, I will be able to replicate the results in the future as well - assuming everything that has occurred was not based on luck alone. I do not believe it was based on luck alone, and I put as much proof as possible along the way to reflect this. 

This was also the goal I made at the beginning of this experiment - to see if I could do this. The results say that I do have an ability to make positive expectancy on my returns that isn't based on luck alone, but perhaps I don't have the necessary mental faculties or solutions to deal with the stress. I know that word (stress) is thrown around these days a bit too much, but it best describes the situation.

This, I think was the best case scenario, better than I could have hoped for or foreseen - get a chance to run my experiment and also get valuable work experience before school starts up again, and for that I am beyond grateful for. I got trading experience, learned a lot about myself along the way, earned some nice spending money and also get a chance to work and earn work experience as well.

A warm thank you goes out to everyone that has followed me or read any of my entries. You have helped keep me accountable and ensured I did not take dumb risks as you were in the back of my mind when it came to taking decisions.

(Below is my final account amount as of June 27, I started with $13,997 on May 1st).

Live long and prosper,
PontusTrade