Mason, the decision to close some of my long positions has actually little to do with my assessment of additional downside risk (actually, I think that short-term, the risk is fairly limited and Monday could easily be an up day). These were stocks bought on margin. I kept them only as long as my daytrading profits were higher than losses in these long positions.
Interestingly enough, I did just a tad better by using my "follow the SOX" short term decision model than by selling at the open on Thursday. It has a built-in delay, so instead of selling at the open I'd sold around 9:50, but I'd also had managed to reestablish my position close to the lows of the day on Thursday and took an advantage of the up gap on Friday.
Call this the beginner's luck - I am a novice in the investment game. To compensate for the lack of experience, I try to utilize my background (systems modeling, operations research) and trade according to predictive models I form. So far, a simple model I use to daytrade semi-equip stocks had been working reasonably well, but my intermediate-term predictive skills are clearly below par. For example, I was well aware of technical signs of increasing downward pressure (e.g., sequentially lower highs for SOX index), but chose to ignore them.
So, it's time for me to pull on my thinking cap again and try to figure out another strategy. I prefer doing it without committing myself to additional long or short positions.
Good luck with your stock picks, actually I am pretty sure they are promising and plan to look at them myself.
Regards,
Y. |
