My trading history part 5

1993 och 1994 I continued at SFI (Swedish for Immigrants) classes. After the Christmas and New Years break and during the summers we were expected to find a job doing what is called practical experience. Each time lasted about 2 months if I remember correctly.

 I found a job at an Electrical firm in our small town. We were expected to work for free (but were paid an allowance by the government). I also found that in Sweden there is never anyone hiring unless of coarse they can get someone to work for free through one of Sweden's many unemployment programs. 

I also found it strange that the job counselor had told me that there were not any jobs for electricians in Sweden and that there would not be any positions for electricians for probably the next ten years due to the fact that they had over built. But here I was working as an electrician. Not only that but they had plenty of work, at my firm anyway. 

 I was later to learn that I had arrived in Sweden during the Swedish banking crisis. 
Around 1985 a newly deregulated credit market had stimulated a competitive process between financial institutions where expansion was given priority. Combined with an expansive macro policy, this contributed to an asset price boom. The subsequent crisis resulted from a highly leveraged private sector being simultaneously hit by three major exogenous events: a shift in monetary policy with an increase in pre-tax interest rates, a tax reform that increased after tax interest rates, and the ERM crisis. Combined with over investment in commercial property, high real interest rates contributed to breaking the boom in real estate prices and triggering a downward price spiral resulting in bankruptcies and massive credit losses. 

After working as an electrician for the firm on two separate occasions I was surprised to be offered a job. The only problem was the company had to clear me with the Electricians Union. So about a week after being offered the job a Union representative arrived at the company and informed both the company and then me that I would not be able be hired until I was a certified electrician and that the first step in becoming certified was doing a two year coarse in Electrical theory. Then and only then would I be able to work as a trainee for two more years before I would be able to work as a full fledged electrician.

This was way too much for me to handle. I had been told by my work counselor that there were no jobs available for electricians and that there would not be any for the next 10 years- I had spent almost 18 months in a Swedish language class where they had given me job training in CNC  machining (CNC Machining is a process used in the manufacturing sector that involves the use of computers to control machine tools) which I hated. And now that I had on my own basically found a place that wanted to hire me as an electrician I had been told I would have to go to school for two more years to be able to start as a trainee. I had already gotten an AA from Los Angeles Trade Tech and worked as an Electrician for several years but this was not worth the paper my AA was printed on in Sweden.

I was so disappointed and angry that all I wanted to do was go back to the US then and there. At least in the US they gave you a chance to see what you could do and where, on the west coast anyway, there were not Union people dictating who was or was not qualified to work. 

When I arrived home that day I told my wife that we were leaving Sweden. This of coarse did not go over well with her. We been in Sweden less that two years and I really had not tried to get a job other that the practical work I had done for the firm that had offered me a job she had pointed out. She was right of coarse but I was so angry that it took me a while to realize it. She had to put up with several days of me complaining and bitching about everything a disliked about Sweden until I finally got over it and decide to seriously start looking for a job. 

A big part of me not looking for work earlier was that the small town we lived in was not would be concidered a hot bed of employment and either was the whole of Sweden for that matter. I did realize that the only way to get a job was to start looking because no one was going to just offer me a job out of no where. 

At the library and checked out a book that listed all the medium to large sized companies in Sweden. I ended up sending my CV to over 70 different companies through out Sweden.  Of those 70 companies I received 2 replies. One explaining that they had looked at my CV and had considered my application but had decided to hire someone else. The other, from L.M. Ericsson, a mobile telephone company with a branch located in Stockholm, and they wanted to interview with me!

Trading history part 4

In January 1992 I arrived back from my trip to Sweden to find the construction industry in a down turn and even slower than when I had left. I had thought that work had slowed way down due to the Christmas season. I was wrong, the construction business in California  had already been suffering from a recession  that officially started July 1990 and went into March 1991. 

I was keeping myself busy hiring myself out to other electrical companies as a way to make up for the dwindling amount of work that I was getting on my own. Even though it was getting to a point that I was having trouble making ends meet.

  My wife who was in Sweden (and still only my girlfriend) was working as an assistant to a mid wife at the hospital in her home town. She really loved her job and my feeling at that time was that she would probably not be back in California until at least the start of summer. So I was surprised when she informed me she was returning to California to continue working with the family that had employed her as an Au-Pair the year before

As you might imagine I was delighted. Not only was I glad to see her but by living together we were able to save a little money and travel. We spent two weeks on Maui in Hawaii which was fantastic and later that year we drove down The Baja Peninsula. Our plan was to drive all the way to Cabo San Lucas but we had to end our trip in La Paz because I had somehow gotten Chicken Pox. Something my Dad had assured me about a year earlier that I had gotten when very young. That trip ended up to be not so fun. 

Sometime during that year we started talking about future plans. My wife, though still very young at the time, wanted to have children. Marriage was and still is quite rare in Sweden. Many couples never get married but unlike the USA there are laws that protect both parties.  So living together is regulated in a law called “sambolagen”  the “the law of cohabited living by couples”. For my wife, getting married was not really that important. I agreed with her that for me I was quite ok with not getting married but if there were to be any children then I thought it would be best if we were married, especially since I wanted my child to become American citizens.  I myself had come to the USA as a 1 year old from England via Canada. Making things more complicated. So in late 1992 I became a naturalized American Citizen, something that I am proud of being to this day.

It was really no surprise when in February my wife told me she had missed her period and was pregnant. So I asked her to marry me and in April we were married. Unfortunately I had injured my back a few weeks before helping my wife's employers move a piano and I was all doped up on pain killers the whole time. 

Reality had also set in for us both. What were we going to do? Here I was with a bad back and my newly pregnant wife had no insurance. Not only that, work for me, even if my back were to suddenly heal, was still very slow. 
My wife explained to me that she was covered under the medical system in Sweden and not only that but she explained how great it would be if our child was delivered by the mid wife that she had been working with while in Sweden. She also explained that she had spent 2 1/2 years in the USA and that it was only fair if I spent some more time in Sweden. I was not to excited to leave the USA but what were my choices? I decided to give Sweden a try, but I had my wife promise me that after 2 years if I wanted to move for any reason that she would follow with our child.

In May 1993 I arrived in Sweden, In September our first child was born.  

My trading history part 3

Winter 1993, my first time experiencing a real winter! Stockholm and Southern Sweden is surprisingly mild for being so far up north. Sweden is really a land surrounded by lots of water. If you ever fly into Stockholm you will know what I mean. As you first start your descent you fly over the straight between Denmark and Sweden called the Oresund Straight. Then as you get lower you see hundreds of lakes and the Stockholm archipelago. It is quite a sight and wonderfully beautiful. It is the surrounding water that keeps the temperature on the mild side. This is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand you are rarely if ever snowed in. On the other hand the clean white snow, that helps lighten up the dark winter days, usually melts, becomes a dirty slush or melts completely leaving a muddy mess. To make matters worse the melted snow usually turns to ice over night and if it is followed by new snow then watch out, if you are anything like me, you end up slipping and landing flat on your back. That first winter I must have fallen at least 10 times. 

My wife was on paid maternity leave and would continue to be for my son's first 16 months! Something unheard of in the USA.  I was given (actually it is required by the state) the first 10 days of my son's life off from SFI (short for Swedish for Immigrants) classes. I was also given the right to take 2 months paternity leave or if I wanted too or I could donate that time to my wife. 
As my wife was the bread winner at the time, (I was getting an allowance from the state for going to SFI of about $550), we decided that she would use my leave instead of me, collecting 80% of her monthly wage every month. 

SFI was held every Monday to Friday  8:30 to 2:30. The first few weeks were mainly basic conversation class. "What is your name", "My name is", "I am from" "I am ___ years old", that kind of thing. I was there with one other English speaking guy from England and the rest were from Bosnia or Croatia as there was a terrible civil war raging in that region of the world at that time. I usually tell people that the only reason people immigrate to Sweden is Love or War. I was there, thank god, for love.  

My wife and I had met 3 years earlier through my then room mate. He was a Life Guard and had met my wife and 4 other Swedish girls on the beach, all of whom were working as Au Pairs. That night he came home from work and asked if I wanted to join them for a night out on the town. Which was of coarse a stupid question, Funny thing was that my friend ended up leaving them all to me to instead try to patch things up with a long time girl friend of his.
  
They were all very excited to be going out dancing as they all had just arrived a few days earlier. I was an instant hit picking them all up in my Volvo, at the time I didn't know that it was a Swedish car.
We had a great time that night. I was very happy to have, as they had said, "been brave enough to take on five Swedish girls". 

One of the girls had caught my eye, she was blonde, about 5"5" with a tiny bit of baby fat still on her, by no means chubby or fat though. She was almost 19 and I was 26. She was a little shy, as was I, and it took a few times of going out with the girls before we both were brave enough to exchange telephone numbers.

After a few more dates we started spending a lot of our free time together, and within 3 months she was spending her nights at my house and leaving for work in the early mornings. 
Eventually she had to go home to Sweden. Her visa had expired and she had over stayed by 6 months. We planned for me to visit her that Christmas in Sweden, even though, it was a tearful goodbye. She didn't believe I would come to Sweden and I had to promise again and again that I would. She didn't know how far I had fallen for her.

That Christmas I arrived to snow on the ground and freezing temperatures. On Christmas day I made the mistake of showering just before leaving for the Christmas Church Service. Being from L.A. I had assumed we were going to drive to Church. When we finally arrived my hair was frozen to my head. Worse still, the ice in my hair started melting and dripping on my Christmas finery. It was so embarrassing, of coarse my wife and her sister got a good laugh out of it!  

Two weeks later I left Sweden more in love than ever but telling myself I would not ever even consider living in such and cold and dark country. How wrong I was.....

My trading history part 2

I was spending more and more time learning about trading, Mostly by reading and in the beginning I would read all I could get my hands on. There were a few good articles on the web at that time. Nothing, of coarse, compared to today.  It wasn't until after I had read the book "Technical Analysis Explained" by Pring  that I had bought on Amazon that I really started to get interested in using Technical Analysis to help me find stocks to buy. 

As I wrote in my last post I bought a program called "MetaStock" (the end of day version) which is Technical Analysis software. It came with virtually every indicator known to exist. I was like a kid in a candy store. I would load my MetaStock program with market price information which was delivered electronically every evening after the market had closed using Reuters DataLink.  I would then pour though hundreds of stock charts. I had chosen probably more than 10 indicators to help me in finding future winners that I could us to help me make my millions.

The biggest problem with using so many indicators, I found, was that they wouldn't all line up. By line up I mean some of my indicators would signal buy and some would signal sell. Or my programs indicators would be signaling that the stock was getting into a buy zone but the stock would continue to go down. I was confused, how could they keep going down even though my indicator was showing me the opposite? Sure there were stock charts that had all lined up and would have been winners but there were literally hundreds upon hundreds of stocks to choose from.

I had spent literally 100's of hours and quite a bit of money. It had gotten so bad that my wife, who was pregnant, was completely fed up with me. I had spent way more time with my program and books and way too little time with her. But I still got angry with her when she complained. Couldn't she see that I was trying to find a way to make some money so we could live a better life? I was still not working and the Volvo factory where they made gear boxes in our little town was not hiring.
Besides I could not speak Swedish very well even though I was going to Swedish lessons.  The lessons were required by the State. If we where to get financial help, I had to go to them the counselor had told us.

 My wife was working still even though she was pretty far along, as a Mid Wife's assistant at the town's hospital, but there was talk about it being closed down and moved to a bigger towns' hospital. Couldn't she see that I was trying to learn how to use the stock market bring in enough money to get us independent from all the things we were facing?

It never really bothered me that we didn't really have any money to invest, that we were by many's standard, poor. My wife knew it, and it bothered her that we had so little. Even though I was 8 years older than her, to me our money situation was not really bad. Not bad enough to get me down. I had always found a way to make enough money in the past to get by on. I had moved out from my parents pretty soon after getting out of High School. I had traveled to Brazil and lived there for 6 months on a string and a prayer. I was pretty street smart having grown up in L.A. and I knew how to hustle. Besides, we had food on the table and a roof over our heads. 

Then the day came, September the 9th 1993 our son was born. It was then it hit me. It wasn't just me and my wife anymore. I had I son. I needed to get a job, and real job not some pie in the sky dream of making millions on the market as a master trader. My dream was put on hold.

Side Note: looking back now I see that not only was there a baby on the way at that time but I was also just an infant when it came to many aspects of my life and especially when it came to trading.

My Trading History part 1

In 1993 I married a Swedish Girl and moved to Sweden. I was raised in Southern California and lived by the beach. Surfing and fishing were my favorite pastime and still are. I didn't really know how good it was to live in Southern California until I left it. I also didn't realize how active of a life I led and how that lifestyle was in a big part due to the sunny California weather.
Sweden is a great place, don't get me wrong. The nature is unbelievable, the winters are pretty extreme though. Spring and fall are well, not much better, the summers are unfortunately, hit or miss.

I found myself indoors and looking for something to keep me occupied. Watching TV was never my thing though I did love to watch American Football. But I was in Sweden, at that time I think we had 10 channels. American Football  was not a sport that the Swedes were that excited about, just understanding the game is hard if not impossible if you are not from the USA or have someone to explain it to you.

To keep me occupied I decided that I would try to learn how to use a computer. The internet had basically just started to reach commercialization and computers had become relatively cheap (compared to what they cost a few years earlier). So I bought a computer and started learning how to use it.

It was pretty neat. I could keep up with the football scores and  stay in contact with my parents. My Dad had always said I needed to learn how to use the computer and that the computer was the future and he was of coarse right. I dove in and really got into it. I am a pretty fast learner so I was up and running in no time.

Not knowing anyone in Sweden and living in a small town I found it diffacult to make new friends.I was introduced to a few of my wife's friends and most of her relatives and luckily most Swedes speak pretty good English.

One of those friends was a guy by the name of Magnus. Magnus and my wife had gone to High School together . At the time Magnus was studying finance in college and was planning to work as a stock market analyst. His dream was to eventually manage a fund and live in New York.
Magnus was super brainy and was not like any of my previous friends. Me being in construction while living in the USA and pretty much an average Joe. Lets just put it this way, there are not many surfers that are interested in finance.

What made us click was that he was almost more American than me. He liked Baseball and football (though he did not totally understand the game he had a good idea about how it worked). After visiting my parents back in the States that summer I brought three baseball mitts a hardball and a bat back to Sweden. Magnus already had a football. We would play catch and hit the ball around. Sometimes his brother would join us or another friend of his so we wouldn't get bored with each others company. Afterwards, over a couple of beers, he would ask me all kinds of questions about how it was to have been brought up in America and what it was like to go to High School there. What it was like to live in California. We would talk for hours.

Not wanting to just talk about me, I started to ask Magnus about what he was studying. He told me about the stock market and tried to explain to me how it worked, he showed me some charts of different stocks that he had printed out and we went on the computer and he showed me stocks that he was interested in and the stocks he was invested in.
I found out from Magnus's mom that he had been investing in the stock market since he was about 10 years old! Magnus had not only been investing he had been making ok money at it. Me not having a job in Sweden at the time, the stock market might be a way to make a couple of bucks.

I went on the computer and would read all I could about the best brokers and about Fundamental analysis and something call Technical analysis.  I asked Magnus a lot more questions and found out he was learning how to analyze company's balance sheet and would even analyse their forward looking prospects. It was way over my head. Plus there was a lot of Math involved, Math was something that I hated, I had only barely passed algebra. I asked Magnus about technical analysis. He found it interesting but said that Technical Analysis was not anything that was taught in College. It was kind of frowned on in fact. Many in academia looked upon technical analysis as a bunch of hokus-pokus. I borrowed a couple of books on the subject anyway from Magnus and read those. I went on Amazon and bought more books about trading and a few more books on technical analysis.
I bought some technical analysis software called MetaStock. I was hooked!

(Side Note) Magnus is now running a High Tech European fund in New York.

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Why a(nother) Day Trading blog?

Today I start my day trading blog about stock trading the US stock market. Day trading for those that don't know already is when a person (trader) buys and sells a stock (option,future,bond,currency)  on the same day.
The reason I am interested in writing this blog is primarily as a way to learn from my own trades by logging them here. Analyzing the trades, good and bad, winning or losing, as a way to improve my own trading and help others improve theirs.