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Monday, November 9, 2009

Performance

The only measure of my performance that I closely pay attention to is whether or not my portfolio value is higher after a series of trades I make. (seriously)

The other day I was at a wedding, and a friend asks me how well I am doing. On a 'rate of return basis' I can not answer that question off the top of my head. Instead I can only qualify it by saying I am doing 'great'.

The reply I got from 'great' was... 'well, how can you not be doing great in this environment'. This obviously does not take into account the many many hours I put into this game, and the fact that money is made from understanding the dynamic of the market. Not simply if the market is up or down. (Although I am very sure my friend's intent was not to insult me.)

The convo got me thinking about the quantitative aspect of my performance since I consistently started trading the way I am trading (post DNDN 'initial' collapse, May 2007).

Basically, since May 2007-to-current portfolio value, the gain is (via two accounts)...

+324% and +276%.

(Ultimately the gain means nothing. Traders are only as good as the last trade, hence my strong belief in the first sentence of this post.)

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