Tuesday, October 10, 2006

My long-awaited reappearance

In a flash, nearly five months have come and gone since I reluctantly threw in the towel on my trading experiment. Although my "towel" was drenched with the sweat of failure and despair on that day in May, I was nonetheless glad to have put myself through a hardening experience at this point in my career and life. And I can't deny it was an exhilirating ride while it lasted.

Scanning through my old posts makes me cringe at the time, devotion and bravado I put into the exercise. Still, looking at the market's hiccups since then and the frustrating stagnation of my last remaining shareholding, BHP, I can proudly say my decision to go on hiatus was a wise one. In my absence thousands of people lost money (not just Telstra investors) including a friend who is searching for his first pot of gold. Unbeknownst to me he had whacked $20000 on tiny telco Engin (ENG) and another anonymous small-cap. Only recently did I peruse through some charts and came to the realisation he was turning a house deposit into a piggy bank full of coins. The crazy bugger isn't fussed though, which I admit is a good lesson to us all on positive thinking and self-affirmation. I wonder how many other early-twenties guys are like us?!

My dad has seen his Telstra retrenchment payout dwindle to less than two thirds of its original value after rigidly insisting on placing 100% into an online savings account. Refusing to look for another stable full-time job doesn't help but the sharemarket's poor performance has given him the last laugh. The managed fund (Perpetual) I recommended at the time fell by roughly 20% in the last three months.

At the other end of the scale, my more conservative friend joined the resources party by splashing a whopping $300 on a junior uranium explorer. He's earnt about $25 so far - yet another example of the tortoise outpacing the hare!

Anyway, after singing off on this blog I shifted my attention to the new business venture being started up by a friend and I. If you think day-trading is hard, try your hand at being a company director! And I'm not talking about some cushy role in a multinational organisation where the hardest task of the day is adding up your earnings on a calculator or debating over which Krispy Kreme doughnut is tastier out of blueberry and Powdered Strawberry. No, I'm talking about trying to be a web developer, designer, marketer, receptionist and strategist all in one.

The business (Noodle Networks) has little to do with trading or the sharemarket, which is why I lost touch with basically all financial news. We will be offering consulting services to small Victorian businesses with a primary focus on providing SMS capability. There is quite a market for this at the moment, and having an IT consulting background it is not overly difficult to achieve. With an SMS "invitations" (Noodle Invitations) site for the general public about to be launched in conjuction with the consulting business, you can see why I've fallen off the radar for quite some time!

So what brings me back? I recently received my dividend in the mail from BHP - a measly $33! Does anybody feel embarrassed when presenting the teller with a cheque of less than $50 ? After that I opened up my old trading software and looked back at all the old resistance lines I had drawn all over the charts. Taking a long term view there are some charts in there that are showing some quite enticing patterns. The biggest disappointment was seeing what has become of the Rinker (RIN) price. I earmarked it as a strong short when it hit a peak, but didn't have the cojones to stick with it.

So although I'm back now and happy to watch the odd chart and dabble with a trade or two, I probably won't have the time to post regularly. For now I need to put on my marketing hat and start doing the hard yards....find new clients!