Look, We’re Dancing

One-two-three
One-two-three
One-two
And now that we’re dancing
Who cares if we ever stop

I am struggling to find the time to get everything done. I have the work of scanning charts and researching fundamentals, the work of fundraising commitments to my daughter’s school, the work of being a parent with a child on a ski team that requires much support and time on the road, the work of keeping my household in check and the work of writing this blog, which I want desperately to do. Never mind that I need to give SOME attention to thehusband, who while supportive, struggles to help with the parenting and household duties himself as he is committed to his own fairly new corporate job in finance and is bogged down by earnings season.

I need a wife!

That said, I would like to share with you the comings and goings of the past week in my portfolio. If you read my last post, you will note that I was dealing the resignation of AMD’s CEO. This was a stock I purchased on a bullish chart with a perfect cup and handle pattern that I also felt confident about fundamentally. I waited until the following morning to decide what to do with this position. As I watched it first thing yesterday morning, I saw it sell off with plenty of volume and decided that the best decision was to sell out and deal with the fundamentals later. As it turned out, it was a good thing I did. I actually made out with a profit and it quickly dropped below my entry point thereafter.

Meanwhile, I have moved on, as is my style. I do not like to wallow in what could have been. When I sell a stock, I move it to the bottom of my screen so that I don’t have to see what it does in the near future. This is not to say that I won’t revisit it later, but I see no point in spending time wondering if I made the right decision. Once I make a decision and act upon it, the right thing is to find the next set-up that will bank me some coin and thus I did.

With the help of chessNwine and Ragin Cajun, I have developed a skill for spotting set-ups on my own. I had long since made a vow to stop following traders blindly into stocks but I am now more confident about leading my own way.

As such, I have plowed into set-ups that have included $KLIC & $BSQR which I bought and sold for huge profits. This is not to say that every set up I find and get into works, but I am quick to get out of the ones that don’t and ride the ones that do. Today, I was profitable in a day trade with $CVD and while I managed to get out right at the peak toward the end of the day, I must admit that this was because of my firm motto to keep pharma and biotech on a very short leash if I get into them at all. It worked well.

I am sitting on some other wonderful gains in $OSK, $MSCC and $ALU and feel both proud and grateful that they worked well as several other subs in 12631 have begun following me into some of these names, which puts the pressure on.

While I find that I am following the great traders of this site into trades less and less, it is only because I am so busy finding and tracking my own, that it is difficult to pay attention to all the wonderful ideas that are being presented.  I will admit that I have taken on some names by other pro-traders, however, not the least of whom is the magnificent Sir Fly, although I did not do so blindly. I joined in the party in The PPT and 12631 in $HRBN, $RBCN, & $IMAX, because frankly, I could find no reason to skip these great set-ups when I saw them, even if I wasn’t the one who found them.

If you saw my quick snow post which I posted earlier in the day, you will note the headline that stated that we have snow in 49 of 50 states. I repeated this headline in 12631 to which Fly responded aptly that snow begets the need for rock salt and he is in $CMP. Indeed the ticker has reached $90 and is now also ripe for a $100 roll. As such, I have determined to stalk an entry tomorrow.

I will also share with you my biggest mistake of the day. If you have been reading my blogs, you will know that I recently made a brokerage change. I have now been trading with TradeKing since the beginning of the week. It takes time to get used to a new platform and much to my chagrin, in my newbie status with them, I made a mistake that was rather frustrating. I hopped back into $OXY for the $100 roll. I did so rather early and the stock pulled back from there. Since I had only bought a very small position and since I have confidence that it will go to $100, I decided to add more at the lower price. Unfortunately, I did not realize that the screen automatically put on a sell order. Apparently, when re-trading a ticker that is already in the port, the program assumes you wish to close it out, so instead of adding to my $OXY, I sold it for a loss. This really annoyed me and I found myself dealing with the brokerage, wasting way too much of my time but vowing never to make this mistake again. A supervisor was smart enough to offer me 5 free trades and a free upgrade to a more efficient platform.  The upgrade was not due only to my complaints, I am sure, but more in response to seeing just how much trading I do. I was relieved to see that they made the effort to keep my business. I have heard horror stories of the same nature from other traders about other platforms. I will spare you the details.

I leave you tonight with a little more insight into my life as a trader, a Mom, a fundraiser, a blogger and a wife who needs a wife. I love this work and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I will see many of you tomorrow in my home on the internet trading the whims of Mr. Market and I promise to get the series of simple fundamental posts finished and posted soon. Stay tuned but for tomorrow…we’ll be dancing.

If you enjoy the content at iBankCoin, please follow us on Twitter