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Pastimes : Home on the range where the buffalo roam -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Boplicity who wrote (12089)	1/13/2004 8:34:57 AM
From: Sig	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13815

Generally speaking: Lessons from last year. 1. Ran full margin all year, which forces me to sell (the hardest part of investing) from time to time.And that worked OK although its too tense. Traded the LT holdings and managed to sell near some highs and buy back on the dips, which worked best on stocks I know well like tsco, agi, gac.to and brli. I could probably do just as well without margin as long as I can learn to sell stuff thats up. 2. Trading worked better than holding so I wont hold as much this year, but perhaps will sell some CC's after this mkt stops going up. But its taken years to learn trading. So this year I hold fewer LT stocks and make bigger trading plays. LT I will handle by buying 2005 Leaps and am buying some now, like Intc, Igt, Dell, Yhoo Which keeps toatl investment way down because of the leverage. 3. Its still a risky market and one still has to dump stocks fast. Had to dump the Agi, Mss, several others to avoid major losses which ruins the overall average 4. My best play this year was 38 jnpr calls, which are up 1700% in the last 9 trading days > I always sell too early so have already sold 20 of those but rolled out a few. Just cannot trust that options friday action. But you can see why I will continue to trade 5. My experience with option expiry is that stocks tend to reach their maximum levels several days before that. Like Friday, Monday or Tuesday. I believe the bears have learned the hard way, to cover their shorts at least two days before expiry. So I dont count on call values to go up much in the last few days. But rules can be broken, there are lots of tech shorts, qcom, Yahoo, intc have all broken out and I hope will continue on up till Friday. Its just nothing I count on happening or bet too much on. I am holding ST calls on Dell, Intc, Igt,Nt, Jnpr, Glw, Tsco, Yhoo ,Fdry, Gold, and Qcom. For stocks I have Opwv, Dell, Brli, and Gac.to Leaps on Intc, Dell, Jnpr, and will be buying some others In summary: Its more important how the stocks are handled, and what ones goals are, than the actual stock being played. Anyone can do just as well or better with a complete different set of stocks from your portfolios. Still need luck, tho(g) Sig