Today was a slaughterhouse day.

Market opened higher and everything was going honky donky, right?

Nope.  Not for me.  I was being cut three ways to sunset.

The first cut was $AMRN.  So $AZN decided to buy $OMTH instead of ponying up a premium for $AMRN.  Well, I think you get what you pay for still apply here.  $OMTH is still a developmental stage company so $AZN has more work to do.  Regardless of what I think or anyone think about the superiority of Vascepa, market did not like the news and punish $AMRN instead.  Who am I to argue?  Therefore, I sold my swing trade position at the $7.5x level which was slightly above my swing trade entry of $7.4x.

The positive spin to this BO from $AZN is that Big Pharmaceutical company is still interested in the fish oil business despite the sloppy Italian study that tried to prove that a low dose fish oil supplemental pill offered no benefit.   I still hold my core $AMRN position and will continue to hold.  Remember I tried to sell my $AMRN position last week looking to buy back cheap but the sellers did not come?   Hindsight speaking, if only I tried that today at the open…  Today action goes to prove that we can try to time the trade but the market does not always cooperate.

My second cut was $APRI.  At first, it started off with a positive bang but then it fell apart later.  While I did not look into the reason why, I could speculate that the public offering for $2.85 was not doing well.  I sold my entire $APRI position to cut losses and moved on.

My third cut was $UNXL.  Again, it started off with a bang on the upside.  Wow!  But being a small float company, sellers came in to drop this one into an abyss.  My stop below the low two trading days ago was triggered and I was stopped out for losses.

$UNXL is a perfect example of the need to beat your own drum.  The Dev’l may still like this one; but don’t forget that the Dev’l has come from a hugely profitable short position on $UNXL before he switches to go long.

On the other hands, I followed the play because the chart looked good for a bounce at the time.  With today price action, my stop was triggered based on my own drum beating regardless of the status of Dev’l’s position.

I bought $NUGT for a bounce play but got stopped out later for small losses.

I bought $EBAY near the open and is still in position since my position is still profitable albeit I gave back paper gain from earlier climb.

I also bought $BPFH from ChessNWine blog post and it was profitable on the get go.  Unfortunately, price staged a waterfall action that stopped me out for a small losses.

I added to $CERS with a limited buy order which got filled in the afternoon (I forgot to post on twitter).  I like $CERS price action and may be moving this trade into the position trade category.  I’m looking for price target to hit at least $8 from here.

Meanwhile, $TINY has a bounce today so let’s see how it behaves the rest of the week.

Current holdings:

LRAD, TINY, AMRN, CERS, EBAY, DNN & 53% cash

@tradingmy2cents

The trades I made in the journal were time-stamped in twitter

(except for the $CERS position I added today which I forgot to post on twitter).

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Everyone is different and unique; therefore, everyone thought process is different and unique as well.  We can all agree on the same subject, but how our thought processes arrive at the same conclusion is totally different.  Each one of us will react differently if the agreed subject matter changes its form.

It is my thesis that each of our thought process is an energy with its own unique frequency and wave pattern “fingerprint” so to speak. In other words, we all beat our own drum when it comes to how we think. Not only that our thought process is as unique as fingerprint, our overload level or “tilting point” is unique as well.   When we “tilt”, we arrive at the fight or flight mental stage.  This is the mental stage where our ego will bury us with extreme fear (flight/panic) or extreme bravado (fight).  Neither are productive for our portfolio management.

Our natural mind, or our need to be right, set a ceiling for our frequency range as well as its wave amplitude before we tilt.  As long as we don’t tilt, our natural mind will function like a normal mind that will allow room for our trading mind to take over if we are focused enough .  This normal range is what some people call the “comfort zone”. This is why when we meditate, our mind will be further away from our tilting point. However, the moment we stress ourselves out with thought processes such as fear, worry, greed, etc, we exceed our comfort zone and our natural mind will enter into an extreme mental stage which will put our portfolio into jeopardy.

Now, do you understand why we need to beat our own drum when we trade?

Suppose you follow trader X whose personality, tolerance, and experience provide him/her with a tilting point of 7 on a scale of 10.  Meanwhile, your tilting point based on your personality, tolerance, and experience has a level of 5.

What do you think will happen?

Trader X can hold on his trade against drawdown in a calm manner while you are already tilted over with extreme emotional reaction to the drawdown.  There is no telling what kind of revenge trading you will do to the trade which may cause severe damage to your portfolio.  At the end of the stock run, trader X may walk away from the trade with a nice gain while you may already have suffered severe damage to your portfolio due to your tilting.

I like to mention that success in trading does not depending on how high your titling point is.  In fact, the higher your tilting point, the faster you may lose your money if you don’t apply proper money management.

Tilting is the “out-of-control” stage where your decision making is based on extreme emotional thought process. An important part of being successful in trading is your ability to avoid tilting. You can have a tilting point of 3 and still succeed in trading because you have the awareness to trade only the type of investment vehicles that you know won’t push you into tilt mode.   Or you have the awareness to choose a trading style that will help you avoid the tilting point.

Let me give you an example of tilting from my personal experience.

I started my trading journey trading T-Bond in the futures market. Interest rate was dropping and I bought T-bond futures based on someone recommendation.  I made money on my first trade in the futures market and I was hooked.  Having a commodity broker account, I naturally traded other commodities such as pork belly, sugar, orange juice, cotton, SP500, etc  Because of their high leverage, I daytraded these commodities more than I held them for swing trade.   Due to the short-term nature and my lack of discipline at the time, I had a hard time holding to my profit.  If I made money one day, I would end up giving it back sooner or later.  Of all the trading vehicles in the futures market, the SP500 Index futures was the only one that made me tilt.

I tilted only two times during my few years of trading the SP500 and it was two times too many.  Each time I tilted, I would lose about ten times more than I would normally allow myself to lose in a day.  While the amount I lost during tilting did not destroy my portfolio, it was a 15% loss compared to a 1.5% loss.  After I tilted the first time, I had the good sense to stop trading for a few months to take a break.

The trade would start out with SP500 taking a gap down at open.  I would then wait for the bounce to short.  The bounce came and I shorted.  Bang!  Right on the money!  I took profit and waited for the next bounce.  The bounce came again and I shorted again; only this time, price action continued higher.  Before I knew it, I was stopped out for loss that practically took away my earlier gain.  Seeing that it was a gap down at the open, I decided that price action for the SP500 index would eventually go back down again.  So, I picked the next resistance level to short.  Price went up to my sell stop and I got filled for the short trade.  At first, the trade would drop from the resistance and I won back my original gain on paper.  However, this day was unlike any other day, this day I wanted more.  I wanted a waterfall price action because my ego dictated that the SP500 had to fall further down.  So instead of taking my profit on my the 3rd attempt to short, I waited for the price to break the support and drop like a rock. No! Price action bounced from the support and headed higher.  The paper profit I saw vanished in front of my eyes and now I was seeing red.

I didn’t know it then but I was on the verge of tilting.  I got mad at giving back my paper gain so quickly.  So I decided to average down my losses by shorting more contracts.  Lo and behold, price did not fall.  It kept going up!   Suddenly, I was starring at a loss that was three times the size of my earlier gain.  I got really pissed.  Boom!  I tilted over!

I wanted to turn my loss back to gain as soon as possible.  So I figured if price really wanted to go up.  Fine!  I would then covered my shorts with twice the amount of contracts so I could go long.

OK! SP500, you want to go up!  I’m going up with you!  By this time, I didn’t care about my portfolio anymore, all I cared about was to be right about my trade.

Unfortunately, I reversed to go long right at the top of a giant retracement.  Holy F**K!  I was starring at loss that was now six times the size of my morning gain!  My emotion was going full steam.

No Fu*king way!  You are supposed to go up!

So I averaged down and bought more contracts.  But price kept on going down!

By the times I reached my pain threshold, I suffered a 15% loss on the SP500 trades due to revenge trading from tilting.

The 2nd time I tilted over on my SP500 Index future trades, I stopped trading for almost a year to find myself.

When I was ready to trade again, I chose stock trading instead.  It all started because my full service Merrill Lynch broker would recommend a stock and proceeded to lose money for me.  Yes, that was before Merrill Lynch went under and became part of Bank of America.  After multiple times of losing, I decided that I could do better using whatever skills I learned from commodity trading to apply to the stock market.  Lo and behold, probably due to the low leverage in stock trading compared to the high leverage in commodity, I have not experienced tilting ever since.

Now that I’m trading strictly on cash with no margin and with my commitment to avoid averaging down while losing, my odd of tilting is practically zero.  Oh yeah, cutting losses quickly play an important part as well.

The point I’m making is that you have to find your own tilt level and then beat your own drum underneath it .  You need to know how you can trade without tilting.  If you want to pick someone else stock pick, by all mean, but use your own trading style to execute the trade.  Otherwise, you are in danger of tilting.

Don’t worry about how other traders are doing with their multiple stock picks; just focus on the picks that you like.  Just because other traders make money with the picks you shy away doesn’t mean you miss your chance.  You may suffer tilting from other traders’ pick simply because the stocks are not right for your trading style. You must find the picks that you feel are aligning to the rhythm of your own drum beating.

Sometimes you may not have done the revenge trading like I had done with the SP500; but if you are sitting on a losing trade that make you nervous everyday, you may have already been tilted especially when you are asking everyone what you should do with the trade.  When you have to ask someone what to do with your trade, you are no longer beating your own drum.

You must take the time to find your own drum (the right market or the right stocks to trade) and the rhythm (trading style) to beat.  It will take some trials and errors before you find yourself.

To find yourself, you need to understand yourself.  To understand yourself, you need to look within yourself and be honest about your strengths and weaknesses.

And yes, I’ve never said beating your own drum is a walk in the park.  But to have a chance to win in this game, it pays that you learn how to beat your own drum pronto!

My 2 cents.

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Today I was missing in action.

Market gapped down at open and then proceeded to climb steadily upward all day in a grotesque stair step fashion.

I tried again selling $AMRN in the morning, this time only half-position size, hoping to buy back cheap.  Not much luck again; but I was able to buy back a bit cheaper than what I sold.  Not much of a good deal but still beat buying back at higher price.

Seeing that the market was down, I decided to unload $TC, $MCP, $SLW (at breakeven when combining the three together) to raise cash.

I also reduced position size on $CERS and $UNXL to minimize risk.

I added to $NUGT near the open when price action was strong; but later on, price action fell apart and I was stopped out for a small losses.

I’m going to give $APRI a little more room to see how the 2nd public offering is being received next week.

Thanks to Dev’s pick on $UNXL, I’m seeing nice green despite the reduced size from peeling off some in the morning.

I was basically neutral most of the day which explained my lack of action except for the liquidation and reduction of some positions.

Current holdings:

AMRN, LRAD, TINY, APRI, UNXL, CERS, DNN and 40% cash.

@tradingmy2cents

The trades I made in the journal were time-stamped in twitter

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Today was a stubborn day.

Market opened down and the first thing I looked at was $APRI.  Seeing that the the public offering price =$2.85; I see some possibility here.  The bids were there at the open so I unloaded the whole lot with the expectation to buy it back cheap.  Fortunately for me, price did go down and stabilized around low $2.6x where I bought back my position.

$UNXL took out yesterday low from two days ago, so out it went.  When price stabilized around mid $22.xx, I bought back my position.

$CERS looked tempting since price action recovered pretty quickly; so I bought back 60% of my original position from yesterday for about the same price.  Hindsight said I should wait; but hindsight was not there when I was buying.  I will see how it looks tomorrow.

$AMRN had a large bids so I decided to sell my whole lot just to exercise my resolve to survive.  There were only a minor hesitation; but I was glad to have done it.  Price did not go down further after I sold so I bought back my position after seeing some buyers coming back in.  I had been sitting on this position for so long that it was a good exercise to dislodge my immobility regarding this position.  Next time when there is a profit to be had, I may just take it with my swing trade position.

I was stopped out of $NUGT for profit on position coming in from yesterday.  Later in the day when I didn’t see any major retracement on this one, I bought a starter positon along with other miners- $SLW, $TC, and $MCP.  Since $MCP is a pick from the Dv, how can I go wrong here?  Nevertheless, I’ll have my own protective stops in place for these position.  I like these miners because their price actions were quite resilient today.

I also bought back some position on $DNN I sold yesterday.

Current holdings:

AMRN, LRAD, TINY, CERS, APRI, UNXL, TC, DNN, SLW, NUGT, MCP and 28% cash.

@tradingmy2cents

The trades I made in the journal were time-stamped in twitter

 

 

 

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With $AMRN being the largest position in my portfolio, of course, I’m taking Vascepa for my cardiovascular health.  Why would I buy $AMRN if I don’t believe in the product?

The good news is that after only two months of taking Vascepa (4 grams per day according to recommended dose), my triglyceride level has dropped 46%.  The last time my trig was this low was eleven years ago.  My total cholesterol has decreased 25% without taking statin.  And yes, my LDL level did not go up.

The reason why I want Vascepa so much is because I don’t like to take statin.  My doctor has been recommending me to take statin for the last ten years and I keep avoiding it.  But I know I’ve to take something.  While my total cholesterol is still in need to come down more, I think I will try the natural remedy such as eating more oatmeal and exercise more.  Meanwhile, I will keep taking Vascepa to keep my trig low.

I’m hoping that with more time on my Vascepa therapy, my total cholesterol will continue to come down.  I’ll let you know after another two months.

Today, I did something that I didn’t think I could do.  I literally sold my whole lot of $AMRN just to prove that I could if special situation required it.  Without knowing whether the DOW would drop a like rock after the 7% drop on NIKKEI, I sold with the hope of buying back cheap.  Unfortunately, price did not go any further down after I sold, so I bought my core and swing trade position back.  All at a price higher than I sold for.  And Where are the shorts when I need them?  Go figure.

My 2 cents.

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Today was a bloody day.

Market opened like a jack rabbit and took off without looking back; then it went into a yoyo phase before turning into a waterfall.  And it had to happen at the day when I was busy with non-trading stuff!

Everything that could go wrong went wrong today.

$NUGT gapped up and I went for it.  It looked good at the beginning but then the rally fizzled.  I put a hard stop below yesterday low to give this more room to breath.  Let’s see if the rally will continue or not.

Other than that, I came back to my desk with everything falling apart.  Lo and behold, I had no choice but to put hard stops to protect myself.  $CERS, $DNN, $GLUU were all stopped out for losses.   These losses were a bit larger than my normal small losses due to the larger position size.

I also bought $UNXL early in the day to go with the Dev’s thesis.  Due to its small float, I’m giving this one a bit more room to work with.

Now, what really threw me by end of the day was the announcement of dilution of $APRI.  So much for the takeover rumor.  I’ll have to eat that losses tomorrow.

Current holdings:

AMRN, LRAD, TINY, APRI, UNXL, NUGT and 40% cash.

@tradingmy2cents

The trades I made in $NUGT were time-stamped in twitter

 

 

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After the morning gap on $NUGT, the wind has spoken.  After a bullish engulfment, we got an inside bar or harami.  Today, a gap up that took out the high of the inside bar is a confirmed bullish stance.  Not only that, $NUGT also took out the previous high of two days ago.  Based on these past few days of price action, I think the probability of gold finding a bottom is getting stronger and stronger.

Of course, I bought back my $NUGT despite the gap up.  Sometimes, I’ve to go with the flow.

Below is the 15 min. chart of $NUGT.  Isn’t it a beauty?

My 2 cents.

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Today was a quiet day.

Market opened up, did a hiccup, then went higher.

As for me, my luck did not continue when $NUGT gapped down at the open.  I practically gave back my gain I made yesterday.  Today was the day when the bullish engulfment bar from yesterday did not follow through; but guess what, I’ll do it again next time simply because statistically speaking, it has a good chance to continue.  So, today non-follow-thru is just another statistical event that I’ve to accept.  Later,  I bought back for bounce play but got stopped out at breakeven; afterward, I left it alone.  Best to let this one settle for now.

Meanwhile, after seeing that $CERS did not do a gapped down or waterfall prices that I fear yesterday, I bought back my shares in the morning.

Since $APRI price action took out the high of Feb once again, I added more.  With the prospect of a takeover, there may still be room for speculation to drive price action up; however, this is still a high risk play.

I also added to $DNN to take advantage of the mini-correction today.  No, it wasn’t a average down ’cause I am still in the money.

By and large, I’ve pretty much concentrated my money into seven stocks with only 29% cash.

Out of the seven, $CERS, $APRI, $DNN, and $GLUU are swing trades.

I’m going to wish myself good luck from here.

Current holdings:

AMRN, LRAD, TINY, CERS, APRI, DNN, GLUU and 29% cash.

My 2 cents.

@tradingmy2cents

The trades I made in the journal were time-stamped in twitter

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Seems like a buyout potential is in the card giving the clue I find here:

Apricus Biosciences Inc (NASDAQ:APRI) Investor Alert: Investigation on Potential Takeover

An investigation on behalf of investors of Apricus Biosciences Inc (NASDAQ:APRI) in connection with a potential takeover was announced and NASDAQ:APRI stockholders should contact the Shareholders Foundation.

San Diego, CA — (SBWIRE) — 05/21/2013 — An investigation on behalf of investors, who currently hold NASDAQ:APRI shares, was announced concerning whether a takeover of Apricus Biosciences Inc would be unfair.

Investors who purchased shares of the Apricus Biosciences Inc (NASDAQ:APRI) and currently hold any of those NASDAQ:APRI shares have certain options and should contact the Shareholders Foundation at mail(at)shareholdersfoundation.com or call +1(858) 779 – 1554.

The investigation by a law firm is at an early stage and concerns whether a potential takeover would be unfair to NASDAQ:APRI investors.

On May 14, 2013, Apricus Biosciences Inc disclosed that on May 14, 2013, the Board of Directors of Apricus Biosciences, Inc. voted to terminate Apricus Biosciences’ Shareholder Rights Agreement dated as of March 22, 2011, by and between Apricus Biosciences and Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., as rights agent.

Shares of Apricus Biosciences grew from $2.50 on May 14, 2013, to $3.409 on May 20, 2013.

However, given that NASDAQ:APRI shares traded in early 2012 as high as $5.49 and that at least one analyst has set the high target price for Apricus Biosciences shares at $8.00 per share, the investigation by a law firm concerns whether the Apricus Biosciences Board of Directors will undertake an adequate sales process, adequately shop the company before entering into any transaction, maximize shareholder value by negotiating the best price, and act in the shareholders’ best interests in connection with the proposed sale.

Shares of Apricus Biosciences Inc closed on May 20, 2013, at $3.35 per share.

Those who are current investors in Apricus Biosciences Inc (NASDAQ:APRI) have certain options and should contact the Shareholders Foundation.

Contact:
Shareholders Foundation, Inc.
Joelle Day
3111 Camino Del Rio North – Suite 423
92108 San Diego
Phone: +1-(858)-779-1554
Fax: +1-(858)-605-5739
[email protected]

Media Relations Contact

Joelle Day
Media and Client Relations Manager
Shareholders Foundation, Inc.
858-779-1554
Email

Follow Shareholders Foundation, Inc.:

Share on rss

Shareholders Foundation, Inc. – Logo

Disclaimer: I’m not familiar with Shareholders Foundation, Inc., so you have to take this piece of information at face value.

Nevertheless, I added more because price took out the high of Feb 11th again.

Click here for link to the article above.

Click here for link to Shareholders Foundation Inc.’s page on Apricus Biosciences, Inc.

My 2 cents.

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Today was a golden day.

Market continues to yoyo all day.

At the open, I watched $DUST because I was intrigued by George Soros’ large call option position on GDXJ as alerted by rogue wave in his reply to The Fly’s post.  The only way I would see a potential bottom on $NUGT was that the double-top on $DUST proved to be a strong resistance.  After seeing the $DUST could not hang on to the high even with an pre-market high of $120+; I saw a potential bottom play on $NUGT with small risk giving that the intra-day low was so close to my entry point.

I waited and price began to climb; I then added more later.  After a few hours of not watching $NUGT, I was surprised to see how high price action had gone up.  I immediately put a protective sell-stop to lock in decent profit if price retraced to below recent pivot low.  I was stopped out later.  However, by day end, momentum for $NUGT was very strong.  Seeing such powerful surge, I bought back a starter position (as higher price than I stopped out for) and then continued to add when price continued to climb higher.  By day close, I’m still in the money with my GTC stop still in place below the recent pivot low using 3m chart.

$APRI was higher after open so I added a bit more.  There wasn’t much movement afterward so I left it alone.

Unfortunately, $CERS was showing a bearish engulfment candlestick in late afternoon so I decided to close out my position to lock in profit.  I tried to give this one more time but I couldn’t hold a bearish engulfment candle overnight when I had profit to take.

$TINY had a nice up bar today probably due to continued price increase on $SZYM.

Meanwhile, my portfolio continues to take heat from $AMRN and $LRAD.

Edit: forgot to mention that by day end, $CERS recovered some so I bought back a small starter position.

That was pretty much the action for my day.

Current holdings:

AMRN, LRAD, TINY, NUGT, GLUU, DNN, APRI, CERS and 35% cash.

@tradingmy2cents

The trades I made in the journal were time-stamped in twitter

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