This Week With StockPunk 8-05-2007

More stocks are showing up on my screens as the market struggles. That's usually a good sign. However, after getting knocked around last week, I'm very hesitant to jump back in this week. We'll have to see how things play out. It's harder right now to determine whether a bounce back up is going to last, or if we're in a losing trend for a while longer.

There are a lot of folks screaming out there about losing 20% or more over the last couple of weeks. That's probably what would have happened to me a while back. Controlling your position sizes and the risk of each trade is EXTREMELY important during times like these. When the market is pushing ahead as a whole, it's easy to think you've got things figured out and that you don't need to protect yourself from risk. There is a lot of uncertainty out there right now and thinking that you know what's going to happen is a sure recipe for disaster.

VSEC has appeared back on my screens this week. It lost 9% last week, and looked like it was recovering until Friday. I'll keep my eye on it.

SMTX still shows up on my "To The Moon" screen despite losing 50% since I sold it in mid-July. I'm starting to see why mechanical investing can create problems for a trader.

It should be a very interesting week this week. I still have a couple of positions open that I'm sorry that I took last week. They are very close to triggering their stops so we'll see if the portfolio is all cash by the end of the week.