Category: Trading Records

Trading Update (June 2022)

June was my best month of the year so far. I shorted S&P and iron ore stocks. I actually lost money on my S&P short bets. Fortunately, my profits from my iron ore stock short bets were more than enough to cover them.

Iron Ore Trades

Iron Ore Price – 3 month chart

The price of iron ore took a dive from 140+ to 110+ in the earlier part of June. I caught probably about 2/3 of this move via shorting Rio Tinto and Fortescue in the Australia market (ASX). Sentiment turned very bad in the iron ore sector, primarily due to stimulus/demand expectations not being met.

S&P Trades

S&P – 1 month chart

I got caught by the rebound in the S&P in the later half of June. I was betting that the continual negative news flow would bring the S&P lower, but the reverse happened.

Concluding Thoughts

Loss aversion is defined as the cognitive bias that describes why the pain of losing is twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining. It is very real for me. At the end of June, I actually did not feel happy. The pain I felt from my S&P losses was more than the pleasure I gained from my iron ore gains. This is despite my iron ore gains far outweighing my S&P losses.

Because of this cognitive bias, there is often more pain than pleasure in the field of trading/investing. It is therefore important to take care of our mental health, as we can only perform optimally with our minds in tip-top shape.

Take care everyone!

Trading Update (Jan – May 2022)

Since my last trading update post, I have decided to stop posting detailed trades. Instead, I will post more generic trading updates. The reason is that getting, prepping and posting the detailed trading info is too tedious, and I am not able to concentrate on my trading. Hopefully the generic trading updates will be more useful to you.

At the start of this year, I was not expecting to trade a lot. My position sizes were small, and markets were uncertain. However, after a slow start, I realized that I was still somewhat able to read the markets I trade in. Thus I increased my position sizing.

I was on a pretty good run until the last few weeks. The recent losses cut my profits for the year by about half. Market conditions have changed, and it means that I need to tweak the trading strategy that had worked well for me this year until recently.