Friday Notes - Laying a Foundation?

5:45pm At one time during last night's local weekly poker tournament, I folded pocket 8s in first position. For non-poker players, that means I was dealt two eights -- a decent starting hand -- yet decided to fold as there were still seven other players to bet after me. I simply didn't feel like playing a marginal hand and wanted to wait for something better.

That seems to sum up my January trading so far for me as I've traded very close to the vest by (1) keeping my involvement and bets on the lighter side and (2) keeping the trade sequence holding times extremely short.

And yes it's frustrated me at times. A lot. Yet the more I've thought about it, the more I think that perhaps January is simply laying a foundation for the rest of the year's "trade". Most who've been following the blog know my perspective on the trading year: it's essentially a single trade (or day) as noted in the countdown clock to the left, with lots of relatively meaningless noise except in aggregation.

And speaking of meaningless noise, I thought today was particularly "noisy" (welcome to earnings season) which is why I coded "Pace Conviction" red on the scoresheet. And my day's P&L looked similar as it fluctuated from green to red and back to green two or three times during the day as I was trying to match the market's erratic pulse, before I closed down around 3pm on the day's modest equity highs. Essentially, I accomplished my typical Friday goal of avoiding doing something stupid that would otherwise ruin a good weekend before it even started.

So 3 weeks down and 49 to go. And in one week, 8% of the 2009 "trade" will be complete and we'll take our first glance at the cumulative P&L. My first serious look will be at the quarter mark on 3/31. And while I've struggled this month with focus and "desire" on the heels of last year's Bamboo nurturing, I do sense a new foundation or root system may be building that I again can't yet see -- a foundation that now includes 17 consecutive days of somehow booking chip gains and avoiding trouble while I continue to search for my 2009 game face.

As I've said before, the streak means nothing to me as I'd take a strong P&L over some stupid streak number every day. Besides, the fictitious draw always makes me think yesterday was a loss anyway, which is how I'll view today when Monday arrives. Yet both the confidence and desire seem to be slowly reemerging from hibernation.

Hopefully, I won't see my shadow on Groundhog Day.

Better yet -- like the movie -- maybe we can try to repeat just some of 2008.

I'll post a video on Saturday A.M. and "The Weekend Trader" as usual.