A Dozen Things My Trading Accounts Are Thankful For This Year

I am a strong proponent of taking stock of what is working and what is not working on a regular basis.

That being said, if my trading accounts could speak, these are some things they would be thankful for so far in 2007:

1. More active use of trailing stops (probably the #1 reason for increased trading success in the past few years)
2. Increased use of the VIX (and VWSI) to aid in timing the market
3. Emphasis on put to call ratios (especially the ISEE) to evaluate market sentiment
4. Lack of hesitation in initiating short selling positions (the end of a long bias approach)
5. Blogging – and all the cross-pollination of ideas that it has engendered
6. ETFs – to diversify, go short, apply leverage, etc.
7. More time stops (including hybrid price/time stops such as a Parabolic SAR)
   
8. Better strategies for taking partial profits in options positions
   
9. Following the China trend, whichever direction it takes me
10. Iron condors and other strategies to capture premium associated with high volatility and/or non-trending securities
11. Numerous enhancements to a detailed and continuously evolving spreadsheet I use to track and analyze all my trades
12. Standardization on a single momentum indicator for my charts: Williams %R