End of Day Journal (1-19-2010)

My head needs to be examined. As I asked a good friend this afternoon - in what part of the universe is a $1400 gain in one day (and for one stock) not enough?

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.