a website that focuses on my two passions: missionary work and the stock market, and c:) Completely disregard my strategy and hold on to two stocks that eventually led to a margin call, forcing me to watch my Covestor chart and $ dwindle to a negative % for the year. So what now? Being the movie buff that I am, I will explain how I plan to come back from this trading funk by rehashing a lesson from Top Gun. After Maverick, a fighter pilot for the Navy, loses his best friend in a training exercise, he finds it very difficult to fly again. He second guesses himself, is fearful, and quite frankly wants to quit. His commanding officer instructs Maverick's 'handlers' to "Get him back in the air- the sooner the better". This is the turning point of the movie, as Maverick comes back with a vengeance and achieves the success he was destined for.There have been time constrictions lately (ie. still have two full-time jobs, planning the confirmed mission trip to East Africa, and opening another trading account), but I absolutely plan on keeping this blog alive. To bring you up to speed, in the past two weeks I've a:) Opened another Think or Swim account in which I plan to use for mission trip income (was already able to withdraw funds from successful FAZ and DDRX trades, as well as my first profitable LULU trade using put options), b:) was given a minor promotion at Target (moved from stocking to human resources- this is my morning job), and c:) Had a wonderful Mother's Day/Birthday with my entire immediate family, my brother-in-law, brother's girlfriend, and my sweetheart of five months, Michelle. Below is a great depiction of what truly matters in life:
From Left to Right: Brother and girlfriend, brother-in-law and sister, me, Michelle, Mom, DadLiving in Exciting Times,
Evan
Get My RSS Feed
Follow Me on Twitter
2 comments:
Well, you have family, faith, health, youth and beauty(!) going for you so maybe a temporary ding to the equity curve will bring balance back to the Force, ha.
I wasn't following your trades super closely, but I thought your were following your core strategy except for FAZ for most of the plays I remember. The strategy is a nutshell - shorting small positions of mostly under $10 stocks after big run ups, occasionally averaging in more when the stocks rise after you entry, and NOT covering until you have a profit, ignoring the short squeezes and the occasional pops - knowing the upswings were unsustainable.
I always thought that your plan may have a flaw in that though the majority of the time you would be right with the long-term short hold and only covering when price eventually came back to earth (instead of like with the Sykes strategy - exiting quickly when prices spike and incurring a higher number of small losses to manage risk)- that the strategy may expose you to catastrophic events when one or two stocks truly breakout or when the market has a run like we've seen the last two months.
I just re-read you strategy link in the post above, and I guess you may of broke one or more of you 7 unbreakable rules on a couple of these stocks - but what maybe missing from the plan is a set of rules on when and how to exit a stock when everything goes wrong. A key your strategy is avoiding the urge to cover on the false spikes but getting out quicker on the rocketing break outs may be important as I don't think you can be right 100% of the time on picking your stock entries.
Peace,
Charlie
Charlie,
I can't thank you enough for your input. Yes, those two 'catastrophic' stocks (LULU & PALM), tied up my capital for far too long. The thing is, I would still have the 500 shares short each if I hadn't have had the margin call (glad that isn't the case- and you're 100% correct about me breaking a few rules). I still think they'll both be lower, but am completely out and all in cash in the account tied to the Covestor chart to the right. I've handed this account over to my brother-in-law now, and haven't decided yet if I'll be posting the new account's trades (though it's on Covestor already as of last week). I'm anxious to watch you get back to trading after the office move is complete:)
Post a Comment