It looks like it was a good day to move up my stops and let the market take me out. If I didn't, the portfolio would be showing losses going into the first full week of September. A month that is historically the worst month of the year for the market.
I am only 10% invested at the time, so I have plenty of cash available for opportunities that appear next week.
With a lot of the charts I looked at, showing a lot of weakness, I would hate to be fully invested at this time without knowing what might happen after the long holiday.
Part of being successful at showing consistent profits is locking in profits as your stocks are doing well. Taking those profits earlier in the week, as late as into yesterday, proved once again to be the correct action.
BOOM is a good example of that. I ended up with a 10% profit in 2 days and even though price rose above the 20 and 50 day moving averages, I didn't see any acceleration in price movement and I moved my stop up. Price has dropped over $3 per share or 7.8% off the high of 2 days ago. And ... the chart looks like we will see additional downside.
stockcharts.com[h,a]daclyiay[d20050502,20050902][pb50!b20!f][vc60][iut!Lah12,26,9!Lc20]&pref=G
Having price move 7.8% against you, when short term trading, is too much damage to overcome. This is why you will see me using trailing stops and constantly upgrading them.
BTW, I saw a great quote the other day.
"You must be rigid in your rules and flexible in your expectations. Most traders are flexible in their rules and rigid in their expectations." - Mark Douglas, Trading In The Zone.
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