Saturday, May 5, 2007

Pigs?

When do you take profits? How do you remove the emotions that you are feeling when you have a trade that is going just like you wanted? In an earlier post I had mentioned AH, and was thinking at the time about the fall of 2007 time period. Thursday the stock rocketed up on strong volume and I know many would just cash in. But it looked like it was going to have a strong close and it did. Closing at the high for the day! Doesn't that mean the only thing keeping it from going higher is the Bell ringing?




That's what I thought it meant. It tacked on another 5%. Pigs get slaughtered. That's what they say. So how do you determine when you are a pig and when you are letting your winners run? I chose to hang on and took no profits. I am sure emotions will have me second guessing myself as profit taking comes in, but I think there is a little more buying to come, I like 89.




So this was sort of a "live" test as I did a strangle 4 days prior to earnings. The stock has moved 15 points in the last 3 days and I closed out my Puts for 10 cent loss and the overall trade is up 39%. This is not an example of a good trader, but rather a gambler that put the odds in his favor AND got lucky. I had original been attracted to this trade because of how tight the bollinger bands were, the stock is all the way outside of them right now.


AKAM - A lot of people are watching this one, I don't think the selling is all over and picked up some PUTs on what I hope is just a bear flag. The risk to reward is there.

CRR - not a real liquid stock but that does not make it untradeable. If this rolls over, this would be a great short candidate.


WHQ- nothing can go straight up with out taking a breather. Those two spinning tops with the second one getting smaller could be a signal of a little retracement right around the corner.


WCG - This stock was channeling up real nice and I played a couple times for a nice profit. For no reason at all, it took a huge dump. I have to wonder if this old trend line will hold up and bullish trade could be placed. The risk to reward is defiantly there, a stop is clear, a close below 80 and watch out below.


NDX - I can not say that I have ever traded a broadening top pattern, but I can say that I am about to. I don't know when it is going to break out and a partial retracement is likely first. Just have to watch it every day.


I seem to have more bearish things on the watch list than bullish. That is only natural after having another super bullish week. I think there are a ton of stocks and equities that are showing over bought. Time to tighten up the stops and look out below.

No comments: