Meetup Update (Part 1)

I attended two trader Meetups this week. Combined with a wacky market over the first three days, I walked away with some interesting impressions.

For the fourth time out of five weeks, I realized a loss Wednesday on my weekly calendar trade. The market was way down in the morning but rebounded to close almost flat. Had I simply checked in at EOD, I would have been fine! Unfortunately, on a weekly trade I can’t do that. The weekly trades force me to pay close attention to the market intraday and I expect to have days like Wednesday where the ride will feel like a Cedar Point roller coaster. I had one beer at the Meetup on Tuesday evening.  By the close on Wednesday, I felt like I needed two more.

I actually recommend one of the two Meetups I attended this week. This was the third event and I wrote about it a couple months ago. If only to give them props, here is the comment I posted on their site yesterday:

> The organizers provide free refreshments and a free raffle,
> they are polished presenters, they field difficult audience
> members/questions… they’re not annoying with any sort of
> hard sell… after three Meetups so far, I’m flat-out
> impressed. Keep up the good work, guys! I’ll continue to
> make the 50-minute drive.

Having said all that, the Meetup does share something in common with the one I attended on Tuesday: I found nothing actionable at either one.

This is very unfortunate. Common sense may be to say if I am attending a trading Meetup then I hope to take away some trading ideas. Because I go for other reasons (e.g. social, networking), I’m really okay either way. I’m quite sure the Meetup organizers would consider the inclusion of actionable information an improvement to their programs, though, and for that reason I believe this is something worth further discussion.