I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Sunday Planning, I plan for the week ahead.
This Friday, I’m having major surgery, a hysterectomy to treat a chronic problem I’ve suffered through for more than ten years. For two weeks after the surgery, I won’t be able to lift, pull, or push more than 10 pounds. Full recovery might take six weeks or more.
To get ready, I’m doing as many gardening tasks as I can, fully cleaning my house, and setting my dog up with a new boarding situation. He’s going for his evaluation tomorrow. He can be a little irritable with certain people and dogs, so I’m hoping he does okay.
I’m also moving forward with some new ideas I learned from watching Schwab’s Trader Talks videos. I’m so glad I signed up for the in-person workshop scheduled for Friday and yesterday because that’s how I learned about the YouTube channel. I skipped the workshops though. I’m a homebody, and prefer to be at home, by myself, not dealing with crowds, especially male-dominated ones, as those workshops would certainly have been.
the current stock market situation
The broad market is in a serious downturn. Last Friday was ugly. I’m sure we will see some relief rallies here, but it will be important not to assume we’ve reached all clear without some better macro and geopolitical situation. In 2022, the market peaked in January and then worked its way downward through the year, with a maximum drawndown to the low of 25%. But there were big rallies during that time of as much as 20%, which could lead people to sigh with relief, and think, “now we’re back to the bull market!” Technically speaking, though, that didn’t happen until June 8, 2023, when the index rose 20% from its low in October of 2022.
My plan is to watch the general tenor of the market closely as well as how different sectors are doing. For example, the energy sector is in a bull market right now (but very stretched) while most other sectors are in a downtrend.
I have two basic trading approaches I’m going to use:
- Swing trades for stocks that are consolidating (going sideways) or up, especially during any relief rally periods.
- Bear vertical call spreads, for stocks that look especially weak, during obvious market and sector downtrends.
I may add some volatility trading strategies as well to capitalize on the market choppiness, fear, and euphoria that will certainly continue throughout this year.
The hermit as my guide
I drew the Hermit in a recent Tarot spread to guide my journey into trading as I embark at the same time on a period of recovery. This card encourages the kind of homebodying solitary lifestyle I so enjoy, and it suggests withdrawal as a way to find the healing I need after surgery (and a breakup):
As an emblem of personal development… the Hermit signifies the idea that only by withdrawing from the outer world can we awaken the inner self….
We see the Hermit on a cold lonely peak. He has left the world of the senses to enter the mind. This image of the mind as stark and chill conveys only a partial truth, or rather, an illusion. The mind is rich with symbols, with joy, with the light and love of the spirit. But before we can apprehend these things we must first experience the mind as a silent alternative to the noisy world of the senses. For shamans the barren peak is often a direct reality. In places as far apart as Siberia and the American South-West shaman candidates go alone into the wilderness to seek the spirit guides who will teach them how to heal.
Rachel Pollack, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom
The Hermit calls for withdrawal from the world:
[It] symbolizes a withdrawal from outer concerns. The person may physically remove himself, but this is not really necessary. What matters is the inner transfer of attention from ‘getting and spending’ as Wordsworth called our worldly activities, to a person’s inner needs. It therefore requires an emotional withdrawal from other people and from activities once thought to be all-important. The card carries within it a sense of deliberate purpose, of withdrawing to work on self-development. In connection with this sense of purpose and with the picture of an old man the card symbolizes maturity, and a knowledge of what really matters in a person’s life.
As I say goodbye to the part of me that perhaps most represented myself as woman — my womb — I enter a time of life when I am simply a wise old person, definitively beyond fertility and maternity. The Hermit is a teacher and a guide, represented as an old man in a grey cloak. But women can embody this archetype too:
The distinction between male-female symbolism and the reality of individual people leads us to some important realizations about archetypes. We tend to see hermits and teachers as wise old men, even in our dreams, because our five-thousand-year-old patriarchy has so impressed this image on our minds. In earlier times, the guides were most often women, as representatives of the Great Goddess….
This would seem to be at time that I can be everything in one, integrating male and female perspectives:
We have seen the star both as a symbol of the Hermit as teacher, and also as a light of the unconscious, beckoning us to discover its secrets. It further signifies the goal of resolving the opposites of life. The water and fire triangles traditionally represent not only two elements usually opposed, but also male and female united in a single form.
Financial trading and personal growth
By learning the arcane wisdom of technical analysis of stock charts, I think of myself as bringing High Priestess and Hermit together. The High Priestess in the Tarot represents “darkness, mystery, psychic forces, the power of the moon to stir the unconscious, passivity, and the wisdom gained from it.”
By turning towards trading I am actually turning away from “getting and spending,” to use the phrase from Wordsworth that Pollack used in reference to the Hermit.
Learning to trade is not just primarily a way for me to protect and grow my savings. It’s a way for me to evolve and mature further as a person. While I am very early on this journey, I already see the truth of what this trader says about embracing this life:
And this as well, the psychological strength one must develop to succeed in trading:
On my Reckless Investing newsletter site, I wrote about the need for patience and equanimity in investing, for becoming non-reactive to the noise of daily life. The Hermit and the High Priestess both are able to remain calm and peaceful through retreat and withdrawal. That is what I shall be doing. As soon as I get my lawn mowed, my house cleaned, and my dog delivered to boarding.