Skiracer's stock slopes

[skiracer]

My comment was supposed to be a joke Ski...Doug

Well taken Doug. Regardless I just wanted to reiterate my feelings about this thread and the reasoning behind my commentary at times. I know these rants are my own personal feelings but I feel strongly about them and specific points like stopping losses before they mount up and protecting your gains with well placed stops. Hopefully what I have to say will help in some way with those that read them. I know that you would never beat up on me intentionally.

[riverbabe]

A bull with his "gonads" surgically removed is a steer.... Wonder what a castrated camel is called?

Speaking of bulls, have you heard the one about the guy in Spain who went to a restaurant for dinner after a bullfight and was mighty impressed when he saw the size of what was on the other diners' plates.......??? If you haven't heard it, I'll tell you what happened next! Riverbabe

[skiracer]

Speaking of bulls, have you heard the one about the guy in Spain who went to a restaurant for dinner after a bullfight and was mighty impressed when he saw the size of what was on the other diners' plates.......??? If you haven't heard it, I'll tell you what happened next! Riverbabe

Ok, what happened next?

[Websman]

It was a GREAT call off the bottom today to catch the 2.42 entry. What I'm curious about is the exit. Why at that point when a stop at 2.55/2.60 level would have insured the gain and left open the opportunity for more gains without sacrificing anything. It ended up closing at 2.74. That's double what he took by exiting the trade at 2.56. And it could run up farther.

My entry was on Monday and my exit was on Tuesday, so this was not a daytrade. I don't have access to a computer on the job so I usually have to rely on limit orders.

I placed a limit ot buy on Monday @ 2.42, and sold @ 2.56 on Tuesday. It's nearly impossible to time the market when you're not there to watch it, so automatic limit orders are much easier and safer.

I realize I could have made a lot more, but I'm still happy with any profit. I'm looking at the possibility of taking an early retirement in the next year or two. Then I'll be able to time these things better.

[riverbabe]

Zolt and IAAC

Ski and everyone, an explanation of my trades and a QUESTION:

Back at the beginning of 2006, I took a month-to-month subscription to thestreet.com Stocks Under $10 and Breakout Stocks. I tried to keep up with the fast and furious trading, but eventually found that they, like everyone else, made some really bad calls (read PALM!) and were basically bottom fishing during the really down market. And they weren't making me a lot of money. So I quit.

ZOLT and ENER are both holdovers from that era. And, I know they are prime examples of how not to hold forever in the vain hope that they will eventually go up. So, I decided not to be shy and to air my bad trades, as well as my good ones, in public on the Ski Slopes. I still have to get rid of ENER, then my portfolio will be cleaned up.

Now, here's the QUESTION: I have always used mental stops instead of hard stops. Yesterday, I decided for the first time to actually set a hard stop to protect some of my gains in IAAC. I set the "sell stop limit" at 36.79. Much to my surprise, not a moment later, the MM had reached down and taken my shares and given me the current market ask of 37.29. What??? What did I do wrong? Riverbabe

[riverbabe]

Ok, what happened next?

Well, the next night after the bullfight he went back to the restaurant and told the waiter he wanted the same dinner that those other diners had the night before. But, when his plate came, the sweetbreads were really tiny compared to the ones he had seen before! And he was really disappointed! So he called the waiter over and really complained! The waiter answered, "but sir, you have to understand, the matador does not always win..." ! Happy Thanksgiving!

[billyjoe]

River,
I've never had that happen. Maybe a mistake was made in transmitting the number. I got caught in that PALM swing . Wasn't there something like a 50% change in an hour? I was on the wrong end of it.

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

[skiracer]

My entry was on Monday and my exit was on Tuesday, so this was not a daytrade. I don't have access to a computer on the job so I usually have to rely on limit orders.

I placed a limit ot buy on Monday @ 2.42, and sold @ 2.56 on Tuesday. It's nearly impossible to time the market when you're not there to watch it, so automatic limit orders are much easier and safer.

I realize I could have made a lot more, but I'm still happy with any profit. I'm looking at the possibility of taking an early retirement in the next year or two. Then I'll be able to time these things better.

Webs,
Sorry, I take it for granted that everyone has access to their screens like alot of us do. It was a great call off the bottom and was just wondering why you didn't play it with a stop. Now I understand. Great play. Any gains are better than none.

[Gwhiz]

Yesterday, I decided for the first time to actually set a hard stop to protect some of my gains in IAAC. I set the "sell stop limit" at 36.79. Much to my surprise, not a moment later, the MM had reached down and taken my shares and given me the current market ask of 37.29. What??? What did I do wrong? Riverbabe

Same thing happened ot me with SONS a few months ago. Not so dramatic though.

Thanks for the encouragement Skiracer

[skiracer]

Ski and everyone, an explanation of my trades and a QUESTION:

Back at the beginning of 2006, I took a month-to-month subscription to thestreet.com Stocks Under $10 and Breakout Stocks. I tried to keep up with the fast and furious trading, but eventually found that they, like everyone else, made some really bad calls (read PALM!) and were basically bottom fishing during the really down market. And they weren't making me a lot of money. So I quit.

ZOLT and ENER are both holdovers from that era. And, I know they are prime examples of how not to hold forever in the vain hope that they will eventually go up. So, I decided not to be shy and to air my bad trades, as well as my good ones, in public on the Ski Slopes. I still have to get rid of ENER, then my portfolio will be cleaned up.

Now, here's the QUESTION: I have always used mental stops instead of hard stops. Yesterday, I decided for the first time to actually set a hard stop to protect some of my gains in IAAC. I set the "sell stop limit" at 36.79. Much to my surprise, not a moment later, the MM had reached down and taken my shares and given me the current market ask of 37.29. What??? What did I do wrong? Riverbabe

You understand anything that I say on this thread is only meant in a positive way and never to make anyone feel bad. Losing money is bad enough and no one needs anyone to pile on. Hopefully the commentary will be helpful over the long run. Are you sure that you didn't transpose your numbers? I cannot imagine how you could set a STOP at 36.79 and then get a price on the sale at 37.29. If the raw data/time of sales show the stock breaching your stop at 36.79 your sale should have triggered at 36.79 and you would have gotten that for the exit price. If as you said you placed a STOP LIMIT order then that is a different animal and a different set of rules and risks. I never use the stop limits because they get treated differently and the STOP LIMIT orders may or may not get filled as you want them to. Here is an explanation of the two and the risks involved when placing a STOP LIMIT instead of just a plain old STOP. Both were taken from the glossary at Options Express website.

There is nothing wrong with airing out our bad trades alongside of our good trades. No one here has all winning trades and when I see someone with all winning trades and no losing positions it either means they are lying or they aren't showing the losing trades. For a number of reasons holding on to a losing position negates the winning positions and the winning percentages over the long haul. Your port has been doing great. You have nothing to feel bad about except letting ZOLT take back to much from your overall gains. It's all a learning experience and learning to control the emotional side of it will take care of that. Maybe someone else with more experience using STOP LIMITS could offer more of an explanation because I'm not sure what went wrong.

[riverbabe]

River,
I've never had that happen. Maybe a mistake was made in transmitting the number. I got caught in that PALM swing . Wasn't there something like a 50% change in an hour? I was on the wrong end of it.

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

Me too. Right after earnings. I managed to sell quick while it was heading down, but the loss was still substantial. Thestreet boys got publicly castigated by some senior advisors there for holding it through earnings. Didn't help us subscribers much though.

[riverbabe]

Ski, thanks for your comments. All your comments here are helpful and you shouldn't feel so worried about them being taken the wrong way. Besides, I think anyone who puts out their port for critique has to have thick skin or they wouldn't do it. It's all a learning experience, after all.

Actually I already knew the definitions of the various stops, and the differences between them. The reason I didn't use STOP is because the Stop becomes the market price, and if the price is falling really fast you can get a much lower price than you bargained for. I knew stop limit had to be hit twice. Actually I always use buy limit orders, so I am comfortable with them.

Maybe I did transpose some numbers or something, as others have suggested. Thanks billyjoe and GWhiz.

[riverbabe]

Egads! I realized I used the wrong punch line! It is "...sometimes the bull wins!"

[Lyehopper]

Lye had a decent loser in X the other day and NB, who doesn't have his port posted here, called Lye out on the play. No one except Lye, who only took offense with the little smiley that NB likes to put up with his posts, took offense with anything NB had to say although Lye lost around 3500 on the trade. Does criticism and questioning your actions make you feel bad? I think so but it is the only way truthfully. It's all geared to make you think about what you are doing and hopefully the commentary will make all of us better at what we are doing.

Ski.... I welcome criticism, yours and anyone elses.... And I think NBB is a valuable asset to the forum.... I just hate it when he uses that smiley on posts that it just doesn't make sense to use it on....

Now, Here's a post I dug up where Rob had a similar opinion of his usage of that crap-eatin-grin smiley. This post says it ALL!!! imo....

[Rob]

Hey, Lyehopper, I'm feeling rather vindicated since that post on Aug. 2. EBAY is up 42.79% since then, and GOOG 35.25%. Don't believe it? Run the numbers.