William,
I appreciate your post. I think it displays a more well rounded approach, self-insight, and some good observations on the market.
I will not respond head on to the question of "my experience" other than to say it is not of short duration and it has been successful.
On the issue of not being able to trade because you are underwater, I disagree. No matter what your entry point in the stock, you can enhance your position if you trade effectively. For example if you now see a 5 point drop over the next two weeks, it would benefit you to sell today and buy back the stake at 5 points lower. On 5000 shares, you would have 25,000.00 more cash at the end of the trade. (If you were really convinced, you could go short). Certainly the market has no memory or concern for your shares or the price you bought them at. One way of looking at the trade I mention is that you are preserving your original position (and regain it by repurchase), but additionally shorting the stock for the short period that your analysis shows it is going down. There may be tax consequences, but if you are underwater on the stock, that shouldn't be a concern. I also recommend trading take place in tax protected accounts. Buy and hold strategies are appropriate for cash/margin accounts. I oversimplified for the sake of space, as some people might trade both accounts, but to the extent that some holdings are buy and hold those should be done in unprotected accounts, leaving the protection for trading activities.
I don't mean the above as condescending, but you said
You ask why I don't trade SEG. I think it's self evident. What started out as a trade of 5000 shares became a trader's nightmare because I didn't follow my own rules. I held on for too long and was caught in a downward spiral. Then I rationalized by saying to myself that this was a sound company and the stock would recover. Now its 2 yrs. later and I'm still showing too much loss to dump it.
Trading doesn't necessarily mean dumping it to me.
The one thing that really irks me is that very few on this BB have the courage to make their own predictions known and to state their reasons. However, they find it easy to criticize anyone else. I suppose that shouldn't surprise me, it's simply human nature. Self preservation, so to speak. I'm still waiting for yours.
Speaking for myself (and not for the rest on the thread), I don't criticize your prediction record per se. In fact your prediction record has sometimes been good and sometimes poor. To me price prediction is a hazardous game. It is not that I am criticizing you and then cowardly not offering my prediction. There is a message in my lack of prediction. I don't believe I can do it. To me that is not the task anyway. Instead of predicting and acting on that, I react to the market more. Instead of cursing the specialist, I watch the stock price. I believe in SEG. I believe the fundamental discussion on the other thread lays out many of the positives, and is sober to some of the negatives. I do not believe in the market at these levels, nor am I willing to risk my money at the level SEG is now. That is not the same as a prediction. SEG may easily go higher. If SEG dropped many points, and I was comfortable with the market, I would buy. If it runs away higher, so be it.
Perhaps some measure of what you are finding as criticism of your predictions per se, is actually skepticism that anyone can effectively predict stock prices in the way that you somewhat dogmatically lay out your predictions.
Good luck in your operation; I hope you make a profit. |
