Early 2008 Reflections...

Without a doubt, 2008 has already proven to be a wild ride. Although the year has just started, I can already see that its going to be a tough one. Right now, short to intermediate trades are the best way to play this erratic market. I've been trying to keep the amount of open positions small (in comparison to other years) and manageable. So far its working for me. I am also trying to stick to longer time frames on my trades. I've realized that one of my problems is that I sell my winning stocks way too soon. One of my past winners that continues to haunt me is COIN. Although I profited from it handsomely, I could have made a lot more just by holding it for another few weeks. Stocks such as COIN change my perspective about trading and make me believe that although I am a short term trader, I'd rather be a longer term trader or short term/active investor instead. While I agree that certain stocks should be traded for short term periods of time, the overall uptrends tend to last longer than what most traders expect. I plan on tweaking and refining my trading/investing strategy over the next few days/weeks. This is a good way for me to learn from my past mistakes.
Later...