Trading Badly

I’m in a funk. You ever get to that place where you want to reverse every one of your trade ideas? I’m there now.

I sell GRMN at $81 and it goes to $103. I buy BBBY for some reason at $36 and it goes low. Then I watch it bounce, set a stop loss that gets hit at $34.74, and watch it have a nice up day today. I sell EBAY in a whipsaw too, and now it’s jumping up like I thought it was going to two week ago.

I think the main mistake here is I’m being conservative, trying to avoid losses. GRMN looks like it’s dropping, sell… EBAY is dropping, sell. The other part of it is that I was nearly fully invested when the stocks started tumbling a couple weeks ago. So “reinforcing” my position was a trick out of my disposal. (That’s my own fault.) I aslo was pretty frustrated for getting in BBBY early and just wanted to get some distance from that trade.

So what do you guys do when you make big costly blunders like this?

Managing Multiple Strategies

So the other day, the big sell off started. And it’s arguable that it’s just beginning. Spurred on by Phil’s post, I considered selling out of everything.

It made sense: I thought everything was going down, so I should sell.

But it also didn’t make sense. One thing I’ve pointed out before is my struggles with trading/investing using so many different strategies. It’s easy to mix them up. That’s why when I make an entry, I need to know what my exit is… and stick to it.

The clearest no-no, which I avoided…

If You Haven’t Figured It Out Yet, I’m a Confused Trader

Maybe it’s all the green on the screen so far… but already after looking through things a bit more, I a am less bleak than I was earlier. I had commented on Philip John’s last post that after yesterday’s sell-off, I was ready to sell into today’s bounce to move to about 75% cash from 10% cash.

I’ve decided to make no move today. Today is likely to be a nice up-recovery day. I need some time to think things through before selling long-term mutual fund and index positions. And I’m likely to do more damage selling early today than holding too long. Tomorrow would be a different story. We’ll see.

Part of my motivation to sell off so much is that I’m on vacation right now and would like to not have to worry about the market during this volatile time. (Day-traders are on to something with their owning no positions after hours.)

I’m also being very loss averse as after selling my GRMN at $81 (which it has bounced back above after a few shaking trading sessions) I’ve gone ahead an lost about $150 so far on two investments in Amgen (AMGN) and Bed Bath and Beyond (BBBY). I had had those stocks on my list as good value-TA plays that were counter-cyclical to GRMN.

Some New Positions – What am I getting Into To?
AMGN still looks good…

Wine Investing

Bill (CEO of WineLog) did a quick little post on Wine Investing over at the WineLog blog and introduced me to a site called WineInvestor.com. A good site to learn about wine investing is wineinvestor.com. Wine Investor is collecting (in one place) all the types of information I would need to explore investing in wine. (more…)

Watch List Notes for 26JUN07

I’m writing this one directly into the blog, and with any hope it will go up before market open today. Let’s what we have on dee plate. AMGN Notes from late last week: “Stoch sell. MACD still strong. I think this guy is recharging.” I’ve since changed my theory from “recharging” to “dropping”. It’s looking (more…)

Watch List Notes for 11JUN07

Below are my notes from yesterday, which I wrote before the open. I realize that I should be a bit quicker about putting these online because (1) they are sometimes timely and people might find them useful and (2) if I make a great prediction it will be easier to believe if I posted my (more…)

Watch List Notes for 6JUN07

I thought I would share my watch list notes again. Here’s what I wrote out this morning before the market opened. It was a really tough day out there, so I’m going to have to re-evaluate a bunch tomorrow. Hopefully this is helpful to you guys. AMGN No sell signals. Test of 30DMA coming up. (more…)

My Watchlist Notes from Yesterday

I’m getting back into trading a bit. Here are my watchlist notes from yesterday. Be warned, I’m a total hack. Even I’m going to do more research before using this stuff. Comments appreciated. AMD – Buy now. Watch intraday for bounce. Supports at $15, $13.50, $10. Half now, half on dip? ERTS – Buy soon. (more…)

Help a Fellow IG in His Support of The Arthritis Foundation

Steve, who blogs here and at UnderTrader.com, is looking for sponsors for the bike ride he will be doing in support of the Arthritis Foundation next Fall. We will be riding bicycles along the coast from San Francisco to Santa Monica, California. It takes 8 long, tiring days! All it takes for you guys is (more…)

Hear Me at WallSt.net

Kristin Friedersdorf, from WallSt.net, has posted her interview with me. Goto her Financial Blog Watch page over there to hear me talk about the history of InvestorGeeks and my lessons learned in trying to start a blog network. I had a great (if brief) time on the phone with Kristin. Her other podcasts are worth (more…)