Not a bad week. I wasn't around much to monitor things and that worked out well for me. I'm inching toward my year high for the portfolio. I'd be happy with a 40% gain for the year. Ugly showed that he had a 100% gain for the MONTH. Why am I not trading the way he is? I probably couldn't hack it.
I printed out an application for some margin at my broker but I didn't fill it out. I'm too scared.
A few of you have inquired about my upcoming scuba trip. This one isn't too spectacular. It's in Jamaica. My scuba purist brother told me to "enjoy the dead reef". He is the director of invertebrates at the Omaha Zoo. It angers him when I eat shrimp ("Do you know how many other animals had to die in those shrimp nets?"), when I take a cruise ("I hope you know they dynamited a healthy reef so that ship could dock."), and when he sees my neglected coral tank ("You're an embarrassment to the aquarium industry.").
I put this stupid video together so you could see me underwater. Our favorite scuba trip so far was to the Fiji Islands. I have never seen so much life underwater. The Caribbean is pretty boring by comparison. I've been spoiled.
We're staying at a Sandals resort and they offer free scuba diving as part of the package. They don't however, offer free internet access. Weasels.
Today the portfolio popped a bit which made for some good entertainment. It was up 1.79%. I made a selling error yesterday with PKOH (which I bought over a month ago). It hasn't done anything so no big loss. I still whimper when I see a stock do well after I've sold it, but that's something I need to work on.
Right now I'm trying to take advantage of this irrational market. I've been a bit hesitant to stay in after an awful August, but so far things are going pretty well.
Like Charles Kirk, I sure wish I would have bought this one. Here's a guy that bought it and then sold it with a wimpy 2% stop. There's always a stock like that somewhere, even in a sucky market. That's what makes this "treasure hunt" kinda fun.
That Chris Perruna sure knows how to pick 'em.
Learning from investing mistakes.
The last two days have seen my portfolio meander back and forth but really hasn't done much one way or the other. Life has been very busy, so the market hasn't been a priority lately.
My wife of 15 years (what was she thinking) and I are going on a scuba vacation in two weeks. My goal is to ignore the market completely during that time (except for the books I bring) so I won't be posting at all. I'll let everybody know before I leave (like you care anyway).
Charles Kirk has a huge list of links if you need something to keep you entertained today.
I pretty much expected today to go the way it did. Nothing too impressive or too frightening. I lost about the same as the market as a whole. No big whoop.
Not a bad week even though I got beat by some of my screens. The portfolio was up 5.93% for the week. I'd feel better about this week's performance if the rest of the market hadn't gone haywire. So for now, it's hard to tell if I'm just riding the wave of enthusiasm.
The DOW is just under 200 points away from the all-time high again. I guess I would rather have clawed my way back while the indexes all struggled. It makes me feel like my gains are tenuous. If things do rocket back down, I hope I'm smart enough not to make the same mistakes that cost me nearly 20% the last time things broke down. Maybe I should go back and read some of my old posts.
This month I'm doing some research on stop losses. Every few months I change my ideas about the best way to manage my account. The whole stop loss issue gets me all worked up. Here's a decent article in Smart Money Online about using stop losses.
These guys have a much better survey than mine this week. I hope their sample is larger than mine.
Today didn't end up as strong as I thought it would, but it was still decent--up 1.17%. I've got a couple of stocks in my portfolio that just aren't moving with the trend. I'm thinking about booting them out if they don't show some action by Friday.
Now that things are looking a bit better for the year, I went back and looked at the mess that I made of August. One of the concepts in Trading for a Living (see earlier post) is to quit trading for the rest of the month if your portfolio drops from 6% to 8% in value. That would have put me at about 36% at the end of August. Instead I traded myself down another 12% by the end of August.
Although it is a bit arbitrary, I think it is a good idea to refocus after that kind of draw down. It is obvious that things aren't quite working out and taking a few weeks away from the market can be enlightening (I wish I could speak from experience, but I can't--at least not yet).
Blogger has been giving me fits all day long, so I apologize for this late post. I can't quite figure out how the discount rate effects EVERYTHING. Apparently it does.
The portfolio was up 3.03% today--not too impressive given the general market was up nearly as much. I'm hoping the euphoria lasts for the rest of the week. I'm up to my 30% goal for September. Yahoo!
Chris Perruna has an excellent article about using position sizing to manage risk on his website today. I've mentioned before that the whole risk management thing is new to me this year. It's all so simple and straight-forward, but it doesn't seem too many traders do it. It's one of the reasons new traders flame out so quickly. I think I just got lucky.
Check out Ugly's Bob Dillon's stock picks video. It made me laugh.
It appears that the bulls really haven't shown up much today and may be waiting for the "real deal" tomorrow. USA Today announced that the fate of the stock market was to be determined tomorrow.
I don't know about everybody else, but I'm not waiting on the sidelines. I'm fully invested (and losing so far today). I'm getting tired of being burned every time I try to time things. I do much better when I pick a stock and let it do what it does.
Speaking of timing, I have found that waiting until lunch time when making a buy has helped me tremendously with my emotions and with getting a decent price for a stock. I used to buy before 10:00 am and often sat there with my hand on the trigger waiting for the best time to jump in. I ALWAYS second guessed my decision no matter which direction the stock headed.
Things usually level out during lunch time and it seems to me to be the best time to place a trade. I'm in a much better frame of mind to make a decision and I usually can get a better feel for where the stock is headed for the rest of the day.
I guess the Rapture was supposed to happen on Friday. Curiously, I haven't gotten any e-mails yet explaining why it didn't.
Everybody's talking about this being a wild week. It should be fun. I've been getting a lot more "buy" signals lately and I'm chomping at the bit to recover some of my August losses by the end of September.
From what I've been reading lately (see earlier post), "chomping at the bit" describes a trader who is pretty much an idiot. In fact I've noticed that many trading traits that I possess are considered "dangerous".
I think the best thing for everybody who reads this blog to do is to sit back and watch me systematically self destruct. And while you're at it, click on a few ads that you see on StockPunk. I've made 9 cents so far in September. Quit laughing.
This was kind of a dull week for me. The portfolio drifted back and forth but really made no big advances either way. I made a tad over 1% this week, which I guess is better than losing.
Next week looks to be the most interesting out of the month of September, although I think next week's decisions have already been built into this week's prices. We'll see.
Pradeep over at Stockbee has a new members-only area. I joined a few seconds after he put up a "Join" button. The suggested cost is $50. I paid more because I think the information he provides saves me that much worth of time each week. I would encourage anyone who like to trade to join. It's money well-spent. Quit being so dang cheap.
My arrogance last week has been replaced with humility this week. The market is handily beating me so far.
I finished Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom by Van K. Tharp about a month ago and I began reading Trading for a Living by Dr. Alexander Elder this week. I've learned a lot from both books.
I am in no way prepared to make a living from trading yet. I hope to be able to however, in 5 to 10 years. But in preparing for that kind of life, there are many things that I never took into consideration. Both books addressed these issues and more:
I've been very busy the last two days, so I've missed a couple of posts. I didn't have much to write about anyway, the market has been kind of lethargic. The portfolio has barely moved.
Chris Perruna has a nifty article on his take on the upcoming Jewish holidays Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
I've gotten e-mails recently that explain that Rosh Hashana 2007 is the day all Christians will be "raptured" out of here. So I guess it doesn't matter anyway.
Not much went on today. I lost 1%. I held on to SILC too long and then sold it at its low. Call me an idiot.
Not much happening this week. I still plan to be fully invested unless things take a dramatic turn. I'm feeling better about how stocks have acted in the past couple of weeks. Things seem to be getting back to normal (at least for me and the screens I use).
My goal for this month is to take my return above 30% with my goal for the year being 40%. We'll see how things play out.
That was a nasty week. I was feeling all good about myself going into Friday morning. I looked at the premarket and got that sinking feeling--why am I not a day-trader? It sure would be nice to be sitting on a big pile of cash in the morning when everything goes to pot. Maybe some day I'll get it figured out. For today I lost 2.20%.
The week wasn't too awful. I made a little over 1%. If I could just do that each week--hmmm. A good sign is that I got handily beat by a couple of my screens. There are a few stocks that are doing quite well out there and I capitalized on a couple SILC & FTI.
It will be interesting to see what Monday will bring us.
I used to read Ugly Chart every day, but when he started trading futures I lost interest. He's been writing some interesting stuff recently and I love his sense of humor. He still seems to be more of a day trader, but his concepts fall in line with some of my ideas.
He also has some hilarious videos and great sarcastic commentary. So I'm putting Ugly Chart back on my list of Great Stock Blogs list. Check it out.
Chris Peruna has a good article on creating several stock screens that he has found perform pretty well. I'm always looking for interesting (and profitable) stock screens and I appreciate anybody who is willing to share the "mechanics" of their screens.
I've been visiting his site more and more recently. It's a great source of information. I'm adding it to my "Other great blogs" list.
I don't know how one stinking indicator can get people so worked up, but apparently it has this morning. SELL, SELL, SELL!!! Wimps.
I made a whole .03% today. I'll take it. This has been a pretty good week. I've been able to recover about half of my losses since the downturn in July. Stocks are starting to click like they used to. Even if things continue to meander like they have the past couple of weeks, I think there are still opportunities to capture quick moves. Just be nimble and not too greedy.
One of my favorite stock blogs used to be Solitaire Trader. He hasn't posted for about a year, but when a stock made more than 10% in a day for him, he did a "Snoopy Dance". I had a Snoopy Dance stock yesterday SILC.
One thing that makes me all giddy inside is when the market has a sucky day and I make a few bucks. It doesn't have to be much. Even one buck is OK. All right, even if I LOSE LESS money than the market as a whole, I'm happy.
Today I made .48%. I'm doing my Chewbaca Howl. ARRUURRAGUH!!!
I debated about going all in today and I haven't had much time to monitor things, but I'm pretty happy with my decision making so far. The portfolio was up 2.81%.
I've got myself spread out a little more than usual. I own 10 stocks when my average is 5. With things as volatile as they have been, I figured it might behoove me to broaden my stops a bit. Wider stops might have helped me in August (see my previous post for some reasoning).
I'm checking out another stock service this month. As I learn more and become more comfortable with my style of trading, I like to go back and review things that have piqued my curiosity in the past. I'll let you know about my experience in more detail next month.
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