My Investment Experiment this year proved to be an expensive learning experience. While I have a few winners and a load of experience under my belt I made some costly mistakes.

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Whew…

I had thought that once we’d moved into the new house that things would calm down and I’d be able to write. I’ve really missed tending this blog, more than I’ve had time to realize in the past few weeks. Anyway, I’m back and hopefully for good. There are still some things going to that will pull me away but I should at least be able to get back on schedule.

So, first things first, an update on where we’re at. I will likely post more detailed news on many of the topics below, when I do I’ll link to them from within this entry.

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I haven’t had much time to post this past week. The posts I do have time for are mainly updates to our situation and that’s what this one will be too. At some point I’ll get back into writing some more useful (I hope) stuff but it may be a while…

So, some quick updates before I head outside to continue working around the house… I’m just going to cram everything into one post to save a little time.

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Made a few trades last week that both generated some cash and put me back in the black for at least one of my positions. I still have a ways to go however.

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Still getting pummeled by the market but I’ve strengthened my position somewhat. I can’t say we’re at a bottom, I think we’ll continue to have a volatile market until the end of the month when the Fed likely raises rates. The comments made after that will determine the overall direction for the market.

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It looks highly likely that the Fed will continue to raise interest rates in the short run. Too bad too, I think the economy is slowing somewhat. Most of the inflation we’re seeing is either tied directly to energy or is a part of it. Slowing the economy down is not truly going to help with that without seriously hurting the economy as a whole. So, it’s time to start getting a bit defensive.

I made a couple of moves this past week, both of which were on the bullish side.

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I haven’t made any trades since my last post, I’ve come close but the stocks never seem to find a solid bottom. I’m not going to bother posting individual write ups for each of my holdings, suffice to say that I still think I have great companies in my portfolio, but the entire market is getting hammered and showing no leadership.

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As I thought, I watched the market for much of the day. Was an interesting ride. My IE portfolio was down over $400 for the day at one point, then up over $200. I ended the day up just under $100.

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I had Friday off and am home today as well.  Friday I couldn’t help but watch the markets on and off all day.  I resisted the urge to become a day trader (because I don’t know enough about what I am doing) and only made one trade.

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Two days ago saw the largest drop in the Dow in three years. After an initial recovery yesterday the Dow slipped yet again by an appreciable amount. All of my stocks are now down but yesterday Shanda (SNDA) saw a nice increase of over 10%.

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