Well I have to admit that was a fine post anyer. I was always against the indisciminate and 'across the board' buy and hold theory. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. I tried to get into (RNWK also)and 3 or 4 really good companies on Friday when they showed signs of rallying off the lows, but the momentum was too strong against rally. Do I think those companies deserve to move up again? Yes, they are not from your list of 'non earners'.. Check out MTSN, SANM. ATMI, NVLS, AAPL and even ZOMX.. They dont deserve to be on the same list as some of the 'nets. In fact a lot of our earnings plays rallied nicely but I used the rally to short them as I saw they were not holding up well (PWAV, SUNW, FAST, FILE, GTW, CREE). Even the 'anticipatory upswing' stocks like IONA, BGEN, ELNT, FLEX, TLGD were good for nice gains before they succumbed and became short trades.
No one was brave enough to take the stance needed to keep up these rather good companies, so they sank. I balanced them with puts and shorts as I have done for the past 5 trading sessions and the puts won out. But if no one is willing to carry the burning torch and buy some of these already beaten down stocks, we will never have a rally. Its no longer a question of 'buying the dips' any longer its more of a return to normalcy and keep the sanity. I did exit all my positions, reentered for all of 3 days and exited once again. I am very untrusting of the 'upper echelon' controlling these markets. Will I ever return to a long term portfolio? No, never. The most I'll hold is for a position trade.
By the way, I got plenty of e-mail thanking me for the shorts last week. Many traders were savvy enough to utilize my shorts and make a killing. In the future we will have an organized system of a) e-mailed updates b)real-time trading forum. Is there a demand? You bet there is. There is an insatiable demand to 'read the market' in an intraday way and call the plays as they occur. |
