I had a busy trading morning which was not necessary a good thing.

$FB opened higher and headed higher, without thinking I automatically added to my position; but later on, the steamroller ran out of steam and I decided to sell the whole lot since it was taking out the mid-point of the bullish engulfment bar established last Wednesday.  One of my rule is that if price retraces more than half-way from a previous bullish bar, stand aside to see if the bear has leg.

$DCTH had me running in circle in the opening hour.  It opened to a neutral to higher open and then price started to tank.  I immediately sold 2/3 of my position to lock in profit from last Thursday.   Then price began to trek back up to neutral so I decided to buy back some to bring my position up to 2/3 of the original size.  But it was not to be.  Prices again went down along with the overall market and I just had it.  I sold the whole lot to protect my remaining gain from last week.  Afterward, I watched and watched.  Price action began to stabilize and the bids were coming back.  Slowly it began to creep back up to neutral.  Seeing that there were no more big sellers coming into the market, I decided to buy back slowly until I had 2/3 of my original position.  By end-of-day, $DCTH had a last minute dash to the upside; therefore, I’m in good shape here.

Do I regret selling some $DCTH earlier such that I’m now holding only 2/3 of original position?  A resounding NO.  I adjusted my risk profile accordingly and I lived by it; otherwise, I would be saddled with indecision all the times.  Be steadfast on your decisions and accept them as part of your normal business as long as you follow the principles of risk management; before you know it, you will no longer second guess any decisions you make.

Meanwhile, $PACB was on defensive all morning so I sold my lot for small losses so I didn’t have to waste time to manage it.  From hindsight, it was a good decision since it tanked 6% for the day.  You see, if you play defensive when you are at risk, in general you will be “ok” on average.  Overtimes, the big win you are able to catch will make your win a truly bankable event.

$CHK looked bouncy so I bought some; however, at the market began to turn the tide to negative, I dumped it quickly for breakeven.

I added to $DDD because it gapped up and the morning retracement seemed to settle down.  However, the act of selling $CHK also prompted me to sell $DDD to lock in profit as well.  Later when $DDD settled down again, I bought a starter position with a stop below the intra-day low.  It was for naught since I got stop-out later for small losses.  Basically, I only gave back a bit what I gained today due to the gap-up.  Overall, I still made money with $DDD from last week and today.

With market turning negative, I started to look for swing trade to close out position.  I saw $GLOG and sold it for small losses.

Later on, I saw the resiliency in $S and it acted like it wanted to go up all day even though the market was negative.  Seeing that it was near the breakout point to the upside from a long long period of cup and handle pattern, I felt this one was a good bet from here.  Usually, when price break out from a long period of consolidation, it can run for quite awhile after breaking out.  Let’s see if this one will follow this pattern.  Oh yeah, I bought some $S in the morning and added more later in the day.

$POT was doing great all day and price was holding steady with a gain; so I left it alone.

Oh yeah, because I was occupied with $DCTH, I totally missed the $AAPL short-trade.

Current holdings:

LRAD, AMRN, TINY, SZYM, POT, S, DCTH and 37% cash.

My 2 cents.

@tradingmy2cents

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

 

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How many of you bought $AAPL at $4xx.00 in Jan 2012, watched it climbed all the way to to $644 in three months. endured the correction to $522 in one month, cheered the resumption of the meteoric rise to $705 in four months, and then suffered the persistent and painful downdraft all the way back to $4xx?

I did not buy $AAPL so I missed the whole meteoric rise but I had witnessed a friend who did all the above.

“It is going to a $1,000!”

“But the market cap is north of half-a-trillion already!”

“Don’t matter, they are not making enough iPhone to supply the demand!”

“But the chart is heading south, why don’t you put a sell stop at $680 to lock in profit?”

“Hmm, I will think about it.  But I will sell some at $800 to lock in some profit.”

But the price never climbed back above $705 since then.  $AAPL began its descent week after week.

“Did you sell at $680?”

“No, I know $AAPL will go back up.  I’m afraid if I sell at $680, I will miss the bounce back to my $800 profit target.”

“But the price has been going down week after week and it doesn’t look like it is stabilizing yet.”

“Do you know that they cannot make enough iPhone to sell?  I hear of iPhone shortage everywhere.  Besides, if they nail the big China phone company, price will go back up to $1,000 in no time.  However, I won’t be greedy, I will sell at $800.”

“You do realize that for each week $AAPL drops in price, it will make it that much harder for you to sell for profit because you’ll be telling yourself you may be selling at the bottom, right?  Basically, you may freeze yourself up from selling if price continues to decline.”

“No worry, $AAPL is not going to go back to $400.  It is an opportunity to BUY!  If you do not have $AAPL share, this is YOUR opportunity to buy some now on the cheap!” He gave me that sly look as if he was letting me in on his special secret.

Needless to say, I’ve to witness my friend gives all his gain back to the market.  Since his average cost is around $4xx; he allows a phenomenal 75% gain evaporates in front of his eyes.

There was another case I witnessed that happened at the time when Linux was the talk of the town.  There was an IPO on a company that sell and support the use of Linux launching in a week.  My friend and I bought some shares of another company that also sell Linux OS in a disc.  I forgot the name of the company.  Anyway, when the IPO was launched, the company we bought did not move much even though the IPO was opened at $100+ on a $28.00 IPO price.  Seeing that there was no following the coattail with our stock, I took my profit and ran.  I also told my friend he should take profit as well.

“Did you take your profit?”

“Well, my hand was on the phone and I was about to dial my broker number; but I could not move.  I was sweating and it was as though another force was preventing me to call.  I could not go through with the phone call.  No, I did not sell yet.”

“Why don’t you try again tomorrow?  Watch the market open and sell if price begins to fall off.”

The next day came and I asked my friend if he had gotten out.

“I couldn’t get up in the morning to watch the market open.  Obviously, I missed the gap-up but the prices fell off afterward and is now down 7% for the day, so I don’t see the point of getting out now.  I think I will wait for it to go back up.  After all, Linux is the new wave.”

Price did not climb back up and eventually my friend had to give back 50% of the gain before he finally sold.

There was another case which I mentioned before in one of my Biotech posts.  After I sold my lot and locked in my 360% gain, I told my friend of the possible unreliable data being promoted on the web, he brushed me off and thought I was being too “weak”.  And to prove his point, he later told me he bought more at the high of the day (which happened to be the historical high of the stock).

Now, this friend was quite intelligent in his own right but he was ignoring all the red flags because he was too consumed by his greed on this particular biotech stock. He was like a different person when I talked to him.  He defended his stock like a star-crossed lover defending his/her loved one when others were trying to warn him/her of the “integrity” of the person he/she was loving.

Needless to day, he lost money on the stock instead of multiple gain he should be taking home with. He later confessed to me that he was already dreaming of an early retirement, planning for his world traveling, etc at the time I was alerting him of my sold-out position.

Such is the destructive power of Greed.

I was not immune to this emotional force as well.  I had my share of being possessed by greed and lost money as a result instead of a gain.  However, I also believe that if we don’t learn from our past mistakes, we are doomed to repeat them again and again.  Hence, instead of putting my past “possession by greed” experience in a far-away corner in the remote part of my brain, I put it on a pedestal in front of me to “remind” myself of the debilitating effect of greed.

This, from my experience, is the only way to control this monster.  As long as we are human, we are always one-step away from falling into the abyss of Greed and be possessed by it.  And once you have fallen, there is no exorcist around to help you escape.  And the only cure available is that the stock you are possessed by get bought out by another company and thus force the gigantic gain on you or that the stock actually reaches your lofty price target and you come to your sense to take it.   Sure, it can happen to you but you need to look at all the corpses around you who have tried the same thing but are not as lucky as you are.

Here is a litmus test to see if you are possessed by Greed:

Stock shoots up and begins to climb

“Ha! Ha! Ha!  It is going to the moon!” (you may be possessed)

“Wow! Go! Go!  Let me move my trailing stop just in case.”  (it’s ok to be excited since you are not a robot; however, you have a plan so you are not possessed)

Stock retraces by 50%

“I’m buying more!  What’s an opportunity! It is gong back up higher!” (you may be possessed)

“Sh*t! I’m going to watch the support, if it get taken out, I will sell some to lock in profit.” (you certainly have a right to be pissed off to see your gain drops by half; but you are not possessed since you have a plan to lock in some profit )

In summary, we have all been possessed by Greed at least once; therefore don’t put that experience away since we have paid dearly for it.  Instead, put it in front of you to remind you of this lesson.  Tell yourself you won’t repeat it again.

It is working for me and I believe it may work for you too if you can acknowledge the destructive power of Greed.

My 2 cents.

ps. Here is a classic example of controlling greed by The Fly himself:

The Fly loaded up on VHC because he had reason to believe it would go much higher; however, after seeing price action languished for too long when it should be going up, he decided to sell his positions in pieces until he sold his whole lot to lock in his gain.  Enough said.

 

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Today was actually a slow day for me since I was tied up with non-trading activities all day.

Anyhow, market opened neutral which was nice since it was printing negative 5.x when I went to sleep.  Unfortunately, $FB was under attack from the get go and I did not like this kind of action after a big rally the day before; thus, I started to unload my position on $FB in stair-step fashion.  For each price decline of taking intra-day low, I unloaded some more.  $FB continued to trek down to mid-$25.xx and I was left with 10% of my original position.  I will add again if price action starts to climb back up next week.  And yes, I took some loss alone the way but it was part of trading expenses.  So, no big deal.

Next, $AAPL looked like it might have bottom in the morning time when $SPY began to trek up.  I bought some for day-trading and was stopped out by the trailing stop to lock in profit.  I didn’t trade $AAPL on the short-side so I missed the downtrend.  I was pretty busy today so I didn’t really have much time to pay attention to the market.

$DDD looked strong with a gap-up and prices bounced around the opening range for awhile; but once it made up its mind to go higher, I added to $DDD for taking out the intra-day high.

$BBRY opened higher as well so I took an opportunity to buy a retracement with a stop below the intra-day low.  When I came back later an hour before the close, I found I was stopped out for small loss.

$DCTH finally spiked up today which I had been waiting for everyday for the last two weeks.  You could see me buying and selling for small losses and gains just to make sure I didn’t get mugged while waiting for the spike to happen.  Well, I’m glad to tell you that I’ve caught it this morning and is happy to be in the position for the spike-up today.  Price, at first, went down at the open so I left it alone; however, later on prices ran back up and created a long-tail daily candlestick pattern called the dragonfly.  Since this kind of candlestick can only happen when the bull side pushes the price back up after beating down by the bear, I immediately bought back my position and wait.  When I came back to find out $DCTH was much higher than the morning price action, I added some more expecting the price action to continue higher next week.  Let’s wait and see.

I also nibbled some more on $SZYM to buy back some of what I sold two days ago.  $SZYM continued to trek lower so I still could buy back another batch for cheaper price.  I haven’t bought back all the shares I sold two days ago yet; therefore I still have room to buy some more.

Seeing $PACB also bounced much higher, this time without me because I wasn’t watching the screens at my desk, I decided to buy a small portion so I will not completely miss out if price decides to rally from here.

$POT and $GLOG were pretty much neutral all day so I left them alone.

That was pretty much a slow day simply because I wasn’t at my desk all day.

Current holdings:

LRAD, AMRN, TINY, SZYM, POT, DDD, DCTH, WPRT, FB, PACB, GLOG and 29% cash.

My 2 cents.

@tradingmy2cents

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Today was actually a quiet day except for the morning frenzy in which I, again, dumped all my swing trades with no remorse.  I summoned them all up in my office and said, “You are all fired!”.  Only this time, all the stocks just rolled their eyes and gave each other a knowingly smile  ’cause they knew I would hire them back in no time.

I went away and came back to my desk to find $FB roaring back to life!

“Holy Smoke!  What did I miss?”

I tried to buy some $FB back at some retracement point but price never even gave it a glance.  So I bought a starter position and leave my original limit order in place hoping that it would go back down later to hit my buy order.

Nope.  No such luck for me today.  So, I bite the bullet and bought some more above $26.00.

Since $FB was an alert from a good fellow (Sooz) from here, I naturally looked at his other alert which was $POT.  Lo and behold, the chart looked fantastic for a bottom-fishing exercise.  With a support nearby, it looked like a good bet with a fantastic risk/reward ratio to go with.  So, without further ado, I bought some $POT immediately.

I’m quite impressed with the tenacity of the bull for the last two weeks.  It just kept going and going and going despite the bear ferocious attempt to scare the weak hands.  Yeah, I’m one of the weak hands when it comes to swing trade.  But I’m also one of the quick one to jump right back in.  Come to think of it, there are A LOT of people like me jumping back in when they sense the bear is taking a night cap.  Hence, the bull just kept on coming back.

Giving the market was working its way back up, I bought back $GLOG as well as buying back some $SZYM I sold this morning with the intent to buy some back cheaper.

$DDD also looked healthy again so I bought back what I sold this morning.

I watched $WPRT closely but price action was acting a bit defensive in the last hour; nevertheless, near the close, price spiked up a bit so I decided to jump back in.

That was pretty much for the day.  I didn’t even try to buy $AAPL for a day-trade since it had been behaving poorly all day.  What’s up with $AAPL anyway?  Did Snow White took a bite out of it?

Well, I’m feeling bullish giving today price action and I can’t wait till Friday to see if the bull can crack open the GW2.

Current holdings:

LRAD, AMRN, TINY, SZYM, FB, POT, DDD WPRT, GLOG and 32% cash.

My 2 cents.

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Market opened up today and it slowly climbed its way higher till closing time.

Meanwhile, my “current” favorite trading vehicle $AAPL was not participating in the bull trend but instead played defensive all day.  I bought $AAPL twice and twice I stopped out for breakeven.

$DDD was tracking lower all day until a late stage rally brought the candlestick to look a bit better; thus, I jumped back in with a starter position.  I’m preferring to play $DDD over $XONE because with $DDD there are more cluster of bids in the vicinity while with $XONE I had to look further down to see the bids which often times give me vertigo just to look for bids to get out.  You may see a nice paper profit on unrealized gain on $XONE but the moment you try to get out, you can forget that nice paper gain you see if you just want to get out at market.

$FB was trading around the support area so I bought a starter position with a GTC stop below the low of the day.  My stop did not hit so I’m still in.

$PACB was exhibiting some stability so I decided to buy back some position.

Upon browsing through my favorite stocks to trade, I came upon $CHK which looked like it was bouncing off the previous minor correction; so I bought a starter position and later added some more by end-of-day because I felt the price action was strong.

Take a look at $CHK daily chart below and you know what I mean.

Once I was in $CHK, I naturally checked in $WPRT since it was all related to natural gas.  $WPRT also exhibited a possible bottom so I bought a small starter position to test the water.  See below $WPRT daily chart:

I was tempted to dump $DCTH today but since it was still sitting on the support line, I would give it a bit more time.  See where the closing price just sat on the support created back on early Feb?

This was pretty much a slow day actually even though DOW screamed 110 points higher.  The elephant in the room was that $AMRN continued to trek lower.  Since I already covered this subject on my previous post, I’ll just chalk up today as an uneventual day for me.

Current holdings:

LRAD, AMRN, SZYM, TINY, CHK, FB, DCTH, DDD, IMUC, PACB, WPRT and 29% cash.

My 2 cents.

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This morning the market had one of those day where it woke up with wood but was quickly dampened by noise of a crying baby next door owned by an European family.

“Waa! Waa! Waa! Give me my f***ing milk or I’ll cry till you…”

Anyway, $AAPL opened up and I added some more for the ride.  I wanted to get back on the uranium sector so I thought today would be the day.  I bought a starter position on $CCJ and $URA after seeing the charts were all pointing up like they were going to break out to the upside.

$BBRY gapped down and I did not have any regret for closing out my short position on Friday because $BBRY was known to bounce violently from time-to-time.  I was quite content with my profit from Friday so I didn’t see the need to gamble that win on an overnight roll-of-dice.  Seeing more than a point down at the open, I watched the chart to look for some stability and bought a starter position looking for a dead-cat bounce.  Using my trusty 15m, 3m, and 1m charts, I bought when these three charts aligned together to yell out “It’s a GO!  Buy now ZEN!”.   Hearing the signal, I bought and was fortunate to catch the dead-cat bounce.  I used a trailing stop to follow the price action and was later stopped out for profit.

$CGEN looked like it was bouncing and despite my better judgement, I bought a starter position thinking that it could run up fast on thin volume and I would be quick to dump it for a tidy profit.  However, after some times in the morning, I looked around and couldn’t find the patsy running up the price.  “Oh Sh*t!  I’m the patsy!”  Without thinking twice, I dumped my position for a small loss.  I deserved this loss for being such a smartass.

Then the market started to turn.  Before $SPY price action became a waterfall, $AAPL was struggling at the top so I decided to sell my lot to lock in profit before giving back the gain.   Then the next down bar happened on $SPY on a 3 min chart and I had this bad feeling that it might become a waterfall price action.

Not to deny my intuition (or feeling of impending waterfall scenario), I started to unload my swing trade positions.  I checked $CUR and it was not pretty so I dumped it to cut my loss.  $CDXS was showing the same unpleasant picture on the chart so I dumped it as well.  $DDD had been struggling since the open so I decided to sell it too to take the small loss before it became a big loss.

$PACB was hitting Friday low and I sold it too.  With the $SPY continuing its trek down, I was scanning my portfolio to see what other swing trade position I had.  I saw $GLOG and out it went.  Then I saw my newly minted $CCJ & $URA; nope, they had to go too.  I stopped at $DCTH and I still saw that massive bid sitting there at the low.  I was very tempted to hold but then I was in the “firing” mood; so I said, “You are fired too!”  Bang! Out it went.

By the time I had fired all my swing trade positions, I had 50% cash along with my core position trades- LRAD, AMRN, SZYM, & TINY.

I was feeling good to sit on the cash and  I went away from my desk for awhile.  When I came back I saw $DCTH was trekking higher.  “Darn! I knew it!  That large bid was there for a reason.”  Not to be denied a rally, I decided to buy back my $DCTH position.  Then I saw RC post in which he mentioned of holding $IMUC.  I checked the chart and it looked pretty good giving a down day today.  I had $IMUC before and I was actually thinking of buying it back when the chart looked better.  And there it was, a better looking chart when all others were taking a dump.  So I bought a starter position on $IMUC.

During the slow grinding state-of-being the rest of the day, I made one long $AAPL trade for a bounce but sold it for small profit when my 3m  & 1m charts started to act up.  From then on, I sat on my hand and stopped watching the market.

Overall, I had a good morning banking coin on $AAPL and $BBRY.  I also “fired” a lot of swing trade positions but was convinced to hire back $DCTH.  I’m giving $DCTH one more day (tomorrow) to prove itself.

AMRN continued to give me heat but LRAD was being a great pal by blowing ice cold air to balance out the portfolio.

Current holdings:

LRAD, AMRN, SZYM, TINY, DCTH, IMUC and 45% cash.

My 2 cents.

Comments »

Today trading was quite thrilling in a manner of speaking.

Let’s started with the market open.  Market opened higher and I was tickled to see my prediction came truth because I told myself that SP500 would open higher when it was printing a negative 2.50 last night.

Immediately I checked $DDD to see where it was.  It gapped higher and I placed an order to add more and got filled at $31.7x.  Then I checked $BBRY and saw the it was printing strong.  I added a bit more and got filled @ $16.5x.

Lo and behold, right after I bought $DDD, price began to fall off and I was going, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”.

Without thinking, I sold 40% of my $DDD holding to lock in profit just in case the downdraft became a waterfall price drop.  Remember, I came in the morning with profit from yesterday run-up.

I checked $DCTH and saw it was not acting well, so I sold half of my position to lock in some profit and minimize my exposure.  Since my position size was no longer large enough to threaten me when price was gyrating around in the negative territory, I left it alone.  I was also comforted by the fact that there was a large bids sitting at the support price level.  This told me that a big whale is trying to accumulate for the next leg run-up.

$PACB was trading the same way $DCTH was and since my position was not large, I left it alone as well.

Price began to bounce up again on $DDD so I bought back half of what I sold earlier.  At the same time, $XONE was also acting well so I added to my position.

Then $BBRY began to hesitate on its price movement, I sold immediately to capture the small gain.  After I sold, $BBRY began its trek up.  Not to miss the rally, I went back in with a tight stop but it was for naught since I was stopped out not long after I got in.

$DDD continued to head higher and took out the intra-day high in the process; so I added some more.  But then, by mid-day, $DDD broke thru the 3-min uptrend line with a sudden drop in price.  I immediately sold my whole lot of $DDD to lock in profit.  I sold $XONE also to lock in profit as well since it also exhibited a sudden drop in price.

Then $AAPL captured my attention.  It began to trek up while others were correcting.  Sensing a coming rally, I immediately bought $AAPL and was glad I did.  Price took off not long after I bought.

$DDD began to stabilize so I bought back the position size I came in this morning.  This time I let it ride without further interference since I wanted to hold it over the weekend.

$BBRY, meanwhile, was behaving defensively the whole time while $AAPL was climbing higher.  Price began to go under the 79 & 89 ma so I shorted a starter position with a tight stop above the ma lines.  Prices bounced back up and I was stopped out for small loss.  Then prices fell off below the ma lines again but I did not try to short again because it was trading near the $16 which I saw as a strong support line.  Why chase when the profit potential was minuscule (being so near the support line)?

Then the unexpected scenario happened; $BBRY broke below $16 support line and all hell was released.  I immediately shorted $BBRY because the $16 support was gone and it took out yesterday low.  This time I shorted a larger position than earlier and used a trailing stop to protect profit.  The fall was incredible fast and my trailing stop was not hit even though I kept moving it down to track the falling prices.  By the time I was stopped out, I locked in over $1/share in profit for the run.  I tried a few more re-entry shorts with a much smaller size position afterward and ended with a small loss and win which pretty much offset each other.

There there, although I missed the gap up on $BBRY only two days ago, I was made whole with today action.  So you see, if you miss the boat, there is always another one waiting for you if you know where to look.  So, don’t sweat it when you miss opportunity because you cut your loss quickly.

$AAPL meanwhile, kept going up but because I moved my trailing stop too close, I was stopped out with profit near the high.  I waited for the minor correction at the top to settle down and by the end of the day, the mini-rally near the close convinced me to jump back in for the overnight hold.

While I had a good day on my swing/day trade; my portfolio kept on taking heat from $LRAD & $AMRN downdraft; but I wasn’t a bit faded by this portfolio balance change.  The way I look at it, as long as I keep up with a net win on my swing trading, I should be fine.  I simply don’t mix my position trades result with my swing trades result because, in my book, one has nothing to do with the others.

Why wouldn’t I take my loss on the position trades and buy them back cheaper, you may ask.  It is because I’m making a heavy bet based on an unexpected news that could drive my position trade up with no warning.  That is the kind of play I’m waiting for; therefore, I’ve to suck up any heat I may be taking now.

E.g. With $AMRN, any surprise news regarding NCE, takeover prospect, positive prescription demand, etc can drive the price up overnight with no warning.

And thus end another week of trading…

Current holdings:

LRAD, AMRN, SZYM, TINY, DDD, CUR, AAPL, DCTH, GLOG, CDXS, PACB and 33% cash.

Btw, I log-in my trade activities within a reasonable time in my twitter account, you can see them here: @tradingmy2cents

My 2 cents.

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Today was a bag of mixed nuts…

Market opened down and $DDD actually opened and stayed positive for a good five minutes before it started to go with the crowd. I was tempted to cancel my stop so I could sell at the market. Why wait for the stop to fill, right? But then the memories of my previous action of jumping the gun before the stop hit reminded me of the foolhardiness of deviating from the plan. Often times, I would jump the gun and watched the price took off without me; if I had stuck to my original stop, I would have stayed on with the runner. So, I decided to let my stop do the work and surely it did.

Not to be cut out of a possible turn-around (trap or not), I waited for a confirmed green bar after a minimum of two red bars before jumping back in for a bounce. It happened and I went back in with half of what I stopped out with. I placed my stop below the low of the day and wait. It was a volatile wait for price went up and then came back down. Thanks goodness I refused to jump the gun and stuck to my stop. In good fortune, the mini-downdraft was not strong enough to take the price down to hit my stop. From there on, the price began to climb and never looked back until the last 40 minutes before close. I continued to add more $DDD during the uptrend. I now hold a bit more than what I stopped out from this morning.  By end of day, I was doing pretty good with $DDD.

I had another “miss” that, this time, it bothered me a bit more than yesterday’s miss on $BBRY. $DNN shot up and I completely missed it because I was busy watching $DDD and a few other stocks. I had a pretty good size position on $DNN yesterday until I thought I was being smart to sell the position to raise cash even though I was at breakeven level. Well, with hindsight, it was one of those bonehead “yellow belly” move that I ought to give myself a kick on the behind. I spent a few more minutes “regretting” the $DNN miss than what I spent on $BBRY’s but that was about it. I moved on.

$DCTH looked strong in the morning and I felt pretty good with my decision to get back in yesterday. Then I checked $PACB and it was acting positive as well; so I decided to buy back some $PACB.

$BBRY looked strong above $16 and did not look like it would correct down below; so I bought a starter position on $BBRY with a stop below intra-day low. So far, I’ve not been stopped out yet.

I checked $GLOG, one of my favorite stock to buy, and the chart looked good- like a bunch of jumping beans on the support line. There was a strong support in the low $12 on the weekly chart so I decided to buy a starter position as well. Unfortunately, price did not stay up and eventually came down below my entry point. Since my paper loss was minimum and I don’t mind taking heat as long as it hasn’t dropped below the $12 support area.

By end of day, $PACB clearly looked sick since my entry so I reduced my position size by 60% to cut loss and minimize exposure. If it doesn’t bounce tomorrow, I will sell the rest.

Meanwhile, I continue to take heat on LRAD, AMRN, and TINY; the rest was just small paper losses that I could wait to see what would happen tomorrow before deciding to cut loss or not.

In general, I don’t mind taking heat on my position trades because it is “part of the job” to do so.  While I may be taking some heat now, I see this heat as pale in compare to the potential gain I expect to see in the future.  Therefore, I don’t sweat the heat here.

Current holdings:

LRAD, AMRN, SZYM, TINY, DDD, DCTH, CUR, GLOG, CDXS, PACB, XONE, BBRY and 28% cash.

My 2 cents

 

 

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Well, today is one of those day where I’m missing the boat because I cut my loss quickly.  $BBRY gapped up at the open and I decided not to chase it.  This is one of those case where I’ve to accept the inevitable of missing some gap up by taking loss earlier.  It is the price we all have to pay once in a while.  It is a fair price considering the larger losses I may have taken if I’ve not taken loss earlier.

Did I kick myself?  Well, I did utter the word “Darn!” when I saw the price.  Do that count?

Afterward, I’ve completely forgotten about the “missed” trade and have been busy with my other stuffs.

Anyway, $PACB went higher and I bought a bit more.  $AAPL was not behaving in a up market so I decided to sell it at breakeven.  Then I had to be away from my computers for awhile; and when I came back I was surprised to see $PACB printing below yesterday close after a strong opening.  Immediately, I sold 2/3 of my position to lock in profit.  Unfortunately, there were no buyers to bid the price back up and the price continued to trend lower; so I sold the rest of my $PACB.  Because I bought some more in the morning, I had to give back some profit from yesterday gain.  But overall, I still came out nicely.

I checked $DDD and saw that it was trying to come back.  Using yesterday low as a stop, I consider it a low risk trade so I bought a starter position using a GTC (good till cancel) stop.

I also like $XONE action so I bought a small starter position as well.

After getting out of $PACB, I took a look at $DCTH and was impressed with its late day rally.  It was down all morning but interest seemed to come back.  So, without thinking too much, I bought back my $DCTH to see if this bounce would kick off the rally I was waiting for.  Remember, just because I’ve gotten out of a stock to cut loss doesn’t mean I’m not interested in it.  Far from it, I’m even more interested watching it as a bystander waiting for the moment to jump back in. Think about it, your mind is much clearer looking at price action when you are not carrying the losses from your prior entry.  Your mind is free and clear and you can look at it like a new trade with profit possibility instead of looking at it like a stock you need to get back to breakeven.

I also added to my $TINY position to build it up to the size I wanted to hold for a longer term position play.

Today, I’m taking heat from $AMRN and $SZYM but the impact is being offset by gain on $LRAD.

Basically, it is a non-eventful day so far.

Current positions:

LRAD, AMRN, SZYM, TINY, DDD, DCTH, CUR, CDXS, XONE and 35% cash.

My 2 cents.

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Today was a busy day as well as a productive day.  I was able to readjust my portfolio down to nine stocks (inside the ten I wanted to keep under).

The day started off with my buying $CCJ in the morning simply because the market opened up.  I also added to $BBRY expecting the price to hit $16 today.

I also like $CDXS bounce and was able to buy back some.

$PACB looked solid in the morning so I added more; meanwhile $DCTH was on the defense all morning and I didn’t want it to take too much of my attention, so I sold 50% of the position first and later the rest for small losses.

Then the DOW began to trek down to the even line and $AAPL was doing the same in the waterfall style on a 3 min chart.  I don’t like waterfall falling prices, so I automatically reached for my mouse and sold my $AAPL to lock in profit before I gave back too much.

Even though $CCJ was still struggling to hold, I moved my stop to breakeven just in case.  It was later stopped out.

$IMUC did not look good and it had been down the last two days; so I made the decision to sell now for small loss and maybe buy back later at lower price.

$AAPL looked like it was stabilizing so I bought it back with a tight stop below intra-day low.  It was also stopped out later.

Before I knew it, $BBRY was also stopped out for small loss.

Since $PACB was acting strong all morning despite the DOW downdraft, I continued to add more which turned out to be a good decision.  $PACB closed today up 16%!  Yay!

I also took the opportunity to buy back the $SZYM I sold yesterday with the expressed purpose of buying them back cheap.  I’m now back to full position on $SZYM.

$TINY, unfortunately, was going through some correction; since I’m considering this one at a position trade, I’m not going to jump in-and-out on this one especially when volume and liquidity is low.

By end of day, with the solid performance of the Bull making a valiant effort to bring the price action back to the Giant Wall One level, I decided to buy back the $AAPL shares I sold today.

Although my portfolio did not move much today with bad ($AMRN & $TINY) against good ($PACB); overall, I’m satisfied with today effort which was all about following the process correctly- cutting losses and adding to winner.

Current holding:

LRAD, AMRN, SZYM, TINY, AAPL, PACB, DNN, CUR, CDXS and 31% cash.

My 2 cents.

 

 

 

 

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