To be or not to be (to sell or not to sell)?

Comment

Comment by Ilia on May 26, 2009 at 10:05pm

Yeah, but sometimes stops backfire. Set a tight trailing stop for my winning GE position, exactly because of the fear of backlash - the stock plunged early morning past the stop and immediately recovered and went up. :-(

Comment by Steven Vincent on May 24, 2009 at 7:14pm

Just be sure to have a stop in place if you are in a losing position. The point at which you have to say "I was wrong about this position." Because the bear could possibly be back and bulls could be wrong. It is a distinct possibility.

Comment by Ilia on May 24, 2009 at 12:47pm

After some contemplating, I came to the same conclusion.

Thanks, Steve.

Comment by Steven Vincent on May 23, 2009 at 9:26pm

You do not have to actively manage your position by watching the screen all day. You can set a trailing stop that will automatically trigger if the position moves against you. But you should not just buy and forget. There is absolutely NO guarantee that we are in a bull market...in fact the recent buzz about the US losing its AAA credit rating is just the kind of thing that can puncture confidence and send the US markets down again.

Comment by Ilia on May 22, 2009 at 7:54am

Hopefully, you're right. I am planning to drift out of the market, at least temporarily - I really need to focus on a big project of mine and managing the stocks does take this focus away.

So, if the market goes up, I'll be selling my positions.

What do you think I should do - go 100% cash or keep my portfolio as mixture of invetsments like GE and SPY and let's say commodities (with stops in place)? What would you do in my position?

Comment by Steven Vincent on May 22, 2009 at 2:42am

I think 875 will hold on SPX, But I could be wrong.

Comment by Steven Vincent on May 22, 2009 at 2:41am

Well always have a stop loss at breakeven once you have a profit. I had a huge profit in silver a year ago and went on vacation and came back to find it had evaporated. No stop in place. Learned that lesson!

Comment by Ilia on May 21, 2009 at 7:51pm

And I did take a loss. Sold at the stops. And... bought on the dip again. Well, I am a true optimist.

BTW, I think, Steve, you should specify in your questions how long has a member been an ACTIVE investor or trader. I have been lesuirely investing for the last 14 years in form of 401k's, IRAs etc. But I came to the market only last January, seeing an opportunity to jump in at the bottom. As you know, the bottom was later in March, but I survived with my stops and because at first I was cautious and kept half in cash.

But after March, I went all in and did well despite no experience and knowledge. My MO was to buy what really dropped down and what I thought should go up - oil, financials, Russia and China...

With success (today I am 31% up YTD, but just a week ago was 49%) I got less cautious and recently I was buying on the margin. And getting pummelled...

So, here is a story of a sucker and his rally. We'll see how I end up.

But it my case, timing may trump lack of experience as I definetely will not lose the principal. How big will be profit is another matter.

Comment by Steven Vincent on May 21, 2009 at 12:19am

Hold your stops! We could be in for a trip down to the 50 EMA. Sometimes you have to take a loss. It's part of the game.

Comment by Ilia on May 20, 2009 at 8:20pm

Thanks for advice. I did set stops at -5%. Unfortunately, initial rally fizzled and the stocks ended up in a negative territory. Fortunately, just slightly lower and far from my stops.

Also, RSX, USO and GE mostly compensated the losses from SSO&BGU. But... After-hours market did not go up. We'll see what tomorrow will bring. Any good/bad signs?

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page