Year in Review, grade B+

A very good year for the bulls. SPY +24%, QQQ up over 53%. My trading account a little bit better than SPY. I feel like I’m taking less risk than buy and hold SPY, so coming out ahead is a good result. My self grade is B+. Almost everything worked. Winning tickers were everywhere, led by NVDA, BRKB, AMZN, META, AAPL. 

As I often write, I am older than most, and my account is not some small throw away account. I have to be deliberate, because I can’t earn enough from wages to make up for big losses. After the margin call during the Covid year, I am especially careful. In my retirement account, I picked several value stocks using a fundamental screener. Those did poorly. 

In my trading account, I leaned heavy towards mega cap tech, and BRKB. That worked well, so my limited equity exposure turned into a good return. 

I remember telling some others to buy on dips, that a 20% percent dip would be a golden buying opportunity. QQQ touched 11 percent then went up. Hard to be so precise.

Going forward, I lean bullish, but will keep huge reserves until more is revealed. A five percent correction can happen at any time for little apparent reason. Last year’s strategy of buying the laggards for the year probably won’t work so well. For now, I lean cautiously bullish. I am grateful for the good year. I know a lot of people are hurting financially. Some of that is choices made. Some of that is disposition. Some are the cards you are dealt.

Some new year questions: Highlights, lowlights of 2023. What did you learn? What do you want more of, less of? What new activities would you like to start or perhaps resume? These are more life questions, than trading oriented, but still can be useful.

Highlights, a good solid year, low drawdowns. Low lights? Missed opportunity because huge gains were out there for those willing to take on the risk. What did I learn? I am an old dog trader, so not much new material to learn. Perhaps, learning to be happy with the half a loaf that I get. I'm never going to be an all in, all out, or all short kind of trader, not at my age and life situation.

Whatever your situation, I wish everyone of you, peace in the new year.