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Strategies & Market Trends : Rande Is . . . HOME -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rande Is who wrote (19758)	2/2/2000 12:50:00 AM
From: jfhh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57584

Hello Rande, It's been awhile since I last contacted you and almost pm'd but I thought I would post one at night so as not to clutter up the thread. This post is addressed to you but is targeted for the lurkers. I do not know how many hundreds or thousands of lurkers there are for every one that does post, but I imagine the number is quite high. A little background for those who don't know me. I have read virtually every post on this thread for the last year. I feel as if I know everyone on the thread. It's a warm group. I tried my hand at trading last year at this time and got my head handed to me. I was exposed to every trick in the book and fell for them all. The end result was an eye opening percentage loss in my retirement account and a devastating loss in the cash account. I went back into the work force where I belong in May and have been studying this and William Jepsen's threads. I have time to do due diligence at night. Working during the day forced me to position trade or swing trade. I cannot get the best buy or sell prices. But by the end of October I had not seen any improvements. I was still making the same mistakes. Still chasing momo's. Didn't take profits when I had em. Sold winners and kept losers. Bought and sold positions all at once. It was very frustrating and embarrassing to have such a poor performance during the most fantastic runup in the history of the market. I guess I woke up one day and started paying attention. ADAP at 39. CPQ at 25. LPTHA at 9. HLTH at 37. AOL ARTT LMGA BDE CORL CMGI EBAY HLIT JDSU NATS XYBR and a ton of William rats. Bought once, twice, three times a lady. Profited often. Kept cores. Sold losers. And there were still losers. You can look at all the trades I made and you will never find anyone trumpeting to "Buy xyz at $123". I frequently put sales orders in at night and purchase orders in at lunch. There is never a panic anymore when someone on the thread posts a new issue to watch and by the time I read the post it has popped. Why? Because I finally figured out there really are new ones rotating in and out every week and that I not only don't have enough time to research them all, but I don't have the funds to buy them. I figure I research about 35-65% of the stocks posted during the week and about 65-85% of the ones posted on the weekend. Of those, some usually fit the criteria I have that I feel comfortable in. I swear there are just some areas that I will never be profitable in (LQID, HEAR, etc.) and that's ok. I'm not trying to bring attention to my process. What this is all about is to thank Rande, William (I will post a separate thank you on his thread later and thank him for his efforts and tell of my success), and all of the other regular people that post. I think you go to a great deal of effort to provide alot of unbiased reporting. Alot of great ideas and starting points. Very little rah rah. Some occasional but well explained disagreements. And an absolutely amazing capacity for compassion and sharing of personal triumphs and tragedies. Thank you Rande. Without telling me one time to ever buy a single stock I have doubled my retirement account. The cash account is still a shambles but that is a separate project. I let it get low, but the double puts it at an all time high. I know, it's one hell of a bull market. It wont be like this forever. Best that I just spent a year of my life reading, learning and researching now than waiting another year. If I can do it, anyone can. I remember you talking about how small share purchases of the very high priced stocks can work wonders. I have purchase many 20-25 share trades of JDSU VERT EBAY CMGI, etc. Buy up and sell down. It works. Sorry for the ramble. Thats why I don't do this very often!! Regulars, thank y'll too. Every one of you. You have some great ideas. Maybe I'll be able to throw some dd out one day. Sincerely, John