ParkTwain's Parlor

[IIC]

To Recover This Loss ... Requires This Gain

1% ... 1.0%
2% ... 2.0%
3% ... 3.1%
4% ... 4.2%
5% ... 5.3%
6% ... 6.4%
7% ... 7.5%
8% ... 8.7%
9% ... 9.9%

10% ... 11.1%
15% ... 17.6%
20% ... 25.0%
25% ... 33.0%
30% ... 42.9%
35% ... 53.8%
40% ... 66.7%
45% ... 81.8%
50% ... 100.0%

You didn't go far enough...What if I lose 100%?

But on a serious note I also figure the opposite...If I make 50% how much do I have to lose to go back to even...33%

Something I typed up for myself last year

To Recover This Loss ... Requires This Gain

1% ... 1.0%
2% ... 2.0%
3% ... 3.1%
4% ... 4.2%
5% ... 5.3%
6% ... 6.4%
7% ... 7.5%
8% ... 8.7%
9% ... 9.9%

10% ... 11.1%
15% ... 17.6%
20% ... 25.0%
25% ... 33.0%
30% ... 42.9%
35% ... 53.8%
40% ... 66.7%
45% ... 81.8%
50% ... 100.0%

[billyjoe]

Park,
Went to several diff. charts and see all time high around 26 in late Nov. '04. See it hitting 23 twice in mid and late Nov. '06.

--------------billyjoe

Can't take a chart's accuracy for granted

This one surprised me tonight. I looked the "max" timeframe chart for SFL tonight at Yahoo Finance, then looked at more or less the same chart (3 years) at stockcharts.com. Very different data are presented. On the stockcharts.com chart I can see that the pps reached a new all-time high over 1 month ago. You don't see that on the Yahoo max chart. I don't know right now which is right or wrong.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SFL&t=5y&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=

[billyjoe]

Park,
Lots of good stuff in the ATH post. Thanks

--------billyjoe

Lots of ideas about placement of stops

Found at "Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns" author Tom Bulkowski's web site:

http://thepatternsite.com/stops.html

Got some research time (12/8/06 data) in today

Lots of really good-looking action as to all-time high (ATH) breakouts. One thing I had been noticing during the last two weeks is a general decline in daily volume in most of the stocks I'm watching. However, for the stronger stocks shown in the 12/8/06 data, that volume decline is not so much in evidence, which is a bullish thing for those stocks, of course.

This week's and last week's action in several stocks is telling me that some market participants are taking this anti-trans fat movement seriously. Look at BG and DAR (which just reached an 8-year high on 12/8/06). See also this news: http://tinyurl.com/yxmnzo (two consecutive posts, second is "reply" to first).

NOTE: I have my own definition of "all-time high breakout" for purposes of finding candidates for a new long position. I see whether a stock that made a new ATH has done so by passing a previous ATH that must have been at least 20 trading days previous (about 1 calendar month previous). The "breakout" part usually means that at least 2X avg daily volume took place to reach the new ATH. Another variant of this approach is to take note of stocks breaking out higher but whose chart shows a high "ceiling" (let's say, headroom equivalent to a 50% gain beyond today's close) to the next area of significant technical resistance, such as with FFIV as of 12/8/06.

Here's the list of new ATH breakouts made on 12/8/06:
ATVI
BTJ
GENT
HTI (major drug deal announced 12/6/06; DO YOUR DD!)
OMTR
PAY
SLF, SMG
TRAK, TRMA

Some other stocks I'm liking for next week based on Friday's action:
ARCC
BG (trans fat tie-in)
DAR (high ceiling variant) (trans fat tie-in)
EV
FFIV (high ceiling variant), FMD, FRP, FRZ
MDCO (like GENT listed above) (see heparin drug news on 12/8/06:
http://tinyurl.com/up2xv )
ICON
LBTYA, LIZ
PSEC
SON, STLD
X

What's pleasingly amazing about one day's data like this is that a position trader like me doesn't need to juggle more than about 5 stocks at a time (risk of 5% per position with no more than 20% of capital in each position, for portfolio risk per position of no more than 1%), so the pickings appear to be really rich based on just this one day's data.

Superb fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth (video)

In concert w/ trio:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dqKDzycvy20&mode=related&search=

This guy is one of the supreme guitarists of the 20th century. But not everyone's cup of tea. I've been listening to him since about 1977. Find several other videos at YouTube.

[skiracer]

Almost bought some ISE, but I'm watching it for now.

As of this a.m., I'm long THI, NSTC, FTGX, ACAS.

Park,
Can I put these stocks up as a portfolio on my thread and track your trades?

Very interesting market summary page at Decision Point

http://www.decisionpoint.com/ChartSpotliteFiles/061201_rr.html

ALL touching 50DMA today

should be a nice bullish swing trade going forward.

Bought THI today

Almost bought some ISE, but I'm watching it for now.

As of this a.m., I'm long THI, NSTC, FTGX, ACAS.

Today added a little NSTC and bought FTGX as a "jumping bean" near-term speculation.

This is my list of stocks w/ alerts for this week

Almost all of these are at or near their respective all-time high prices per share.

Alert for a bull breakout:
AXP
CSTR
HRL
LIZ
ROP

Alert for a pullback:
ALL, AMP
BEZ, BG
CACH, CDWC, CHTT, CME, CMT, COG
DE
GIL, GSL, GTXI
KOP
MLHR, MON, MTN
NCR, NKE, NSTC
PAY
ROP
SAY, SON
TRAK
VCLK

Some stocks I like for this week

I already own ACAS but might not by end of this week.

Given further strength in the overall market, I will probably *buy* one or more from this list this week:
ADBE, APD
CBS
FLIR
GME, GPK
HURN
ISE
PNK
SUNW
WIT

However, looking at the overall market objectively, one would expect to see weakness in the major indexes sooner rather than later.