You have to take them out of your trading account and put them somewhere else. I have a long term account at Hambrecht & Quist. Ther is where I keep my internet remnants and the intermediate holds like ADLAC, SAWS, FWRD,FRNT,KSWS, ZQK,INF, and longer ones which I've held since January/February (MACR, ERTS, INTU etc)..
I'm thinking of even putting FVCX over there and not wondering about it any longer. What I do is churn them after a new good earnings period. For example I was going to sell ADLAC but decided not to in the last minute and replace with a similar in the sector. Now I have to decide in the next few weeks on the new intermediate holds.
Among the running are ETEK, AHAA, VYTL,CUST,ESPI, CMPX, CYTC..in other words stocks that have had very strong earnings reports and/or high growth estimates for the future. Of course I change my mind as I did with HLIT and sell after 25% gain, which can come within 3 weeks also. If I had USWB there (200 or so shares) I would not worry about it too much but put in a loose stop all the same. If you have it in your trading portfolio its going to be a distraction especially if you have many shares.
About the straddles. I don't really expect that to work. This with WCOM was hindsight. You can't compare options you sell in the morning with options you sell near the close. You can't be sure you'll get the right price for the puts and calls the next morning. I'd rather do what did with EBAY and hold the calls for 3 days and then buy puts if the stock turns or do nothing and get into another net stock that has just finished correcting. Its easier to track them this way.
There are a lot of extenuating circumstances besides the chart.. For example the VRSN was running great but I had to watch it in the same looking glass as a nasdaq market down 45 points and its peer stocks still not having reversed positively around 2:00. If the NASDAQ had been down only 10 I would have held them longer. Then you have those reporters on CNBC misrepresenting about a tanking internet sector and interviewing another 'analyst' saying maybe its the end of the internet run ups at 3:30 and all the while they are talking, EBAY,RNWK,NITE,NTBK,GNET,VRSN,CNET, are all running up strongly. Again frightening away traders with incorrect reporting.
You just do the best you can, and when you make a mistake, you usually do it better the next time. |
