Apprenticed Investor: Trading Diary, Part II

Caveats & Invites

Anything you do on a computer should be backed up, burned to CD or DVD, and stored in multiple locations (home, office, bank vault, lawyer, accountants, etc.). Excel files are small enough that you can email them to your Yahoo! or Google account monthly, and then save them. Again, you will thank me later for this.

Finally, I am making the same request/offer as last week: Play with the spreadsheet -- add to it, personalize it, make it your own. Anyone who feels they have significantly improved on it should email me an Excel copy. Fame and fortune await you; I may share truly outstanding improvements with your fellow readers in a subsequent column.

For instance, reader Perry Spector of Encinitas, Calif., made an astute observation regarding last week's column: Investors also need to keep a record of what and why a trade is passed over. That's a terrific suggestion. Knowing what you were thinking about the ones that got away can only help you with future stock selections.

	1.	Expect to Be Wrong		2.	Your Fault, Reader
	3.	The Wrong Crowd		4.	Bull or Bear? Neither
	5.	Know Thyself		6.	Prepare for Battle
	7.	Bite Your Tongue		8.	Don't Speak, Part 2
	9.	The Zen of Trading		10.	The Folly of Forecasting
	11.	Lose the News		12.	Tracking Elephants, Pt 1
	13.	Tracking Elephants, Pt 2		14.	Nothing Doing
	15.	Surviving Silly Season		16.	The Zen of Trading
	17.	Curb Your Enthusiasm		18.	Six Stocks
	19.	Bended Knee		20.	Time Waits for No One
	21.	Write this Down
Check back for more of Barry Ritholtz's Apprenticed Investor series