Investing Motivation

I haven’t had a real motivation to invest much lately.  This hits me occasionally.  Sometimes I try to force myself through it.  That typically ends in some bad trades and stupid losses.  This time I’ve had enough on the table already that I didn’t feel that nagging need to trade to keep the cash flow coming through.  I’m also wary of the economy enough to want to keep more cash available on the sidelines right now.

Many equities have room to pull back further I think with the banks still easing their loss announcements to the public in monthly and quarterly installments instead of letting it all out at once and oil still relatively high.  I went to lunch today with a client that services a niche technical market catering to attorneys in the South and he said they are even seeing law firms tightening their belts too.  I think that’s a good example of how widespread this recession is.  All sectors are being hit.  You don’t hear as much about the law firms since they aren’t public companies, but it shows how much the privately held companies are dealing with the downturn in the economy like the rest of the companies on Wall Street are.

The Olympics played their own role in distracting me from investing research as did my two recent vacations to New York and the beaches of South Carolina.  Oh, I guess work has been a distraction too.  In the end, I’m not forcing myself to focus on investing while I watch the S&P 500 fall.  I’d rather give myself a mental break while I have cash on the side and my long positions covered so that when it turns I’ll be ready to get back in strong again.  I also had another flare up in my recurring back issues and have been fairly heavily medicated for the past six days.  That tends to slow my thinking ability and could be a large part of my inability to find a trade I like lately.

Knowing me, my mental break could be complete by tomorrow or Wednesday.  I only read one article in Barron’s this weekend and only three to four last week.  I should be nearing the tail end of this break.  Until I can shake this unmotivated funk, I’ll ease my way into any new positions and will likely sell far out of the money puts to give me as much cushion as possible.  I didn’t send a deposit in to my TD Ameritrade account in August and don’t plan to in September.  I’d like to be able to get my account balance above $100,000.00 through growth, not deposits.  Until I can find growth again I feel I should use my cash elsewhere.