Week in Review 4-20-2007

Finally this week is over. I had a difficult time this week watching the indexes beat me into the ground. I ended up making a measly .39%. Every one of my screens beat me pretty soundly. The worst did 1.52% and the best made 3.92%. Once again, I prove the futility of trying to manage things with my own perceived brilliance.

Mistakes I Made This Week:

I had a few stocks that were no longer passing my screens. After a good day on Monday, I should have sold them. Instead I put 3% trailing stops on all of them hoping to capitalize on further gains. My greed ended up costing all of Monday's gains even as I watched the DOW press higher.

Another stop on AOB was poorly placed. It triggered on Thursday, and the stock recovered.

My fear of KRSL kept me from 6.51% worth of gains. I've also noticed that my stop earlier this month on CPA (see earlier posts about my disappointment with that one) prevented me from gaining 20%.

The more I experience in the market, the more I am convinced that I have very poor predictive abilities. Everybody says that my returns are great. I wonder how much better they would be if I quit sabotaging everything with my constant "refining".