Well - a stellar day on the markets, and a nice bump on the account value, but it could have been much better...
Selling:
I sold out of one position today. I sold out at the intra-day low, and ended up taking a $250 loss; and this on a stock that was up $790 on the first morning of ownership; silly me. At one point today I had a nice $360 gain, and from there it crepted downhill, that is, kept crept down until I finally decided to sell, then everyone bought back in - I couldn't have timed it better; it almost felt like everyone was watching and waiting for my sale.Buying:
I entered three additional positions today; two of them realized gains before the end of the day, and one is even.What ifs:
Good grief.There happened to be a positive news release on one of the stocks I was holding and pre-market trading saw the value on one stock go +$0.12 above my sell with good volume; more than enough to cover what I had, and enough to realize a $1400 gain. But I kept nudging the sell and missed it.
I am sure the one that I ended up selling I should not have. That is what I get for watching it all day. I think the fact that I held this position for several days and missed a previous high contributed to the decision to sell.
Mid-morning, the account was up $1864.88. I seriously contemplated selling everything, but I did not, and watched it crawl down the rest of the day.
I thought I had learned this lesson already: don't be greedy.
But... the last couple of weeks has seen great action on the account, and I attribute this to doubling the effective sell point (from +$0.20 to +$0.40); that and the ability to ride out an intra-day loss given the cushion above the minimum margin requirements. A couple of good weeks has lent itself to the urge to hit home runs. I think I pushed it too far.
The more I do this, the more I realize that the biggest game is in my head, i.e., win or lose, I think success will be consistent if I can maintain a consistent perspective: not getting carried away hitting them out of the park, and if I am losing for the day, establishing and keeping sell points.
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