This year hasn't been friendly to people like me who are used to one-way trading.

I say it's a lack of time, but to be more honest, it's a lack of ability to trade in and out of market swings. Most of my home's computing power is given to my kid: career planning, growth management, question banks, research reports... The research bandwidth and execution windows left for the market are indeed limited.

So this year, I will definitely lower expectations. The gold, silver, crude oil, and FCN positions I started building the year before last, plus the "spare tire turned main" $Micron Tech(MU.US) are all helping to hedge against time pressure and execution errors.

Diversification is self-awareness; spend some time to upgrade your viewpoint from single-point bets to structurally withstanding pressure.