Sunday, January 4, 2009

My 2009 Goals

My mind has been active lately. I have a notepad or post-it note that I jot down ideas that are floating in my head or things that I need to do and every square millimeter of real estate has just been about filled up. I'm going to try to flush some of these stuff out and cleanse my brain.

The most important thing for me is my goals for 2009, both professionally and personally. I don't like making resolutions. They sound like promises you don't plan on keeping anyway. Quit smoking, lose weight, pay off credit card debt. I must say that we all could use more discipline in our lives. Instead, I'm just going to call these goals. Because goals don't imply that you can only make them at new years. Because goals can be big or small and they strive you do better, even just baby steps. Because goals are concrete and measurable.

Professionally:
  • Trading Profit: XXX,XXX. You'll have to forgive me if I'm not comfortable disclosing absolute dollar value here. I will say that it's 6 figures and I'm shooting for 20% increase from last year. I don't expect this year to be as volatile as the last but given how pitiful the first 8 months of the year was for me I think this is definitely achievable and a good stretch if I can put the discipline and skills I've learned from last year to practice.
  • Long Term and Options Profit: 20% of the the aforementioned amount. It's a little harder for me to set a dollar amount here because I'm still just a baby growing in these two arenas. I feel like my focus is still in the equities side first. People have always talked about the 80-20 rule, which means that for a business, about 80% of your profit comes from just 20% of your customers. There are other interpretations as well. I've heard someone saying that you can increase your result 80% by just focusing on 20% of your effort.
  • Write three tickers that I actively use. I have some ideas brewing using VWAP, moving averages, accumulation/distribution, pair trades but I have to think more about the set up and the probability of it working out. I plan on scanning the Insight library to get some ideas as well. I have one that I've been working with Jane a little on and I want to see which category she filed it under to potentially see some ticker ideas other traders are playing with that they've made public. I've been trying to plot the VWAP using our trading software to no avail at the moment; I'm gonna have to ask some of the tech guys or development team for help on this.
  • Come up with one autotrade model. It's possibly that I turn one of the tickers into an autotrade. It'd be more complicated just because you have to define your entry and your exit strategy. Of course there's also the problem of running it and testing it.
  • Hit HP status and become a coach. If I hit my monthly goals it should be no problem at all.

Personally:

  • Get out more! Even if just sitting on the patio reading. I'm planning on buying a bike, except I don't know if I should get a mountain bike, a road bike, or a hybrid. I've got one of those Garmin GPS watches that tracks your route for you. I'm still not big on running but biking I like. I've concluded that I don't spend enough time with nature. Speaking of reading earlier...
  • Read more fiction. Actually, I wouldn't mind just reading more. I have a lot of subscriptions coming through my Google Reader so I do read a lot, but there's just something to be said about sitting down and having an actual book in your hands. I tend to read more non-fiction stuff so I'm going to make a point to read more fiction from now on. I'm even planning on getting a library card... boy, I haven't had one of these since I was like 8.
  • Have lunch/hang out with one friend that's in Austin once a month and call two friends that moved away each month. I briefly mentioned in the previous post that I felt like I concentrated too much on work and neglected a lot of friendship from the college years. Many of them are in danger of falling in the category of "It's-kind-of-weird-you're-calling-after-X-years."
  • Take a photography class. I've been into photography for a while now and through fumbling around myself and reading a snippet here and there I have improved quite a bit. However, I do want to take an actual class to fill in any gaps that I should know in order to become a serious, kick ass photographer.
  • Learn a foreign language. I started feeling that simply knowing English and Mandarin is not enough. If I have my way I'd just install a program in my head like they did in The Matrix and I'll load the German, French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese program in my head. Since this is the real world, I'll have to do it the hard way. I'm leaning towards German since I'll be visiting Sarah. I actually just talked to Paul today and he said his wife was using Rosetta Stone to learn Chinese. It doesn't really teach the basic phonetics or any of the grammar stuff but just immerse you in the language so you can converse with other people. I'm curious. I think I'm going to get it.
  • Cook once a week. If I'm in Austin I'm going to cook something or try out a new recipe at least once a week.

Basically my approach to 2009 is to invest, in myself that is. I want to feel like I learned something new everyday, whether it's a new photography technique or a new German word (or even English word for that matter). And I want to be more hands-on, more DIY instead of just watching it on TV or read about it.

3 comments:

Sarah said...

I tried Rosetta Stone but found it was a big waste of money. I like the Pimsleur method a lot more. Check out both before you make a decision - both are pretty sizable purchases.

Emils said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Emils said...

sounds like you have a busy year ahead of you!!