Selling:
I sold out of two positions, one that had been held for a day, another that had been initiated last week; for $149.93 and $280.31 gains respectively (or 5.05% and 2.46% respectively).Buying:
Only one stock passed the end-of-day screener critera, but with relatively low volumes coupled with the fact that I lost on the purchase last month, I did not buy; and though I usually do not do this, I did not bother adding the stock to the historical tracking data.What if:
A just-shoot-me-already day: a stock that I have been holding for about a week showed a positive gain (at one point during the day the account was up a total of ~$540), but then proceeded to lose it all and then some by day's end. I thought about selling, I really did, but I decided to hold on.Should I have sold, or shouldn't I have sold? The decisoin to not sell was based on a hunch, and as it turns out, a rather bad hunch. Here are some other approaches that I think I could have used:
1. Compare stocks at similar gain/loss percentages
After having passed the purchase criteria 6 days ago, this stock had been at a negative 8% gain. It seems like looking at stocks with similar behavior at Day 6 may give some indication of future behavior, no guarantees of course, but it help refine the hunch:
The stock in question is highlighted. Not a lot to go on, but out of the 8 stocks below a 7% loss on Day 6, 4 went on to close higher; 50/50. You will notice that Day 7 actually shows this stock higher, which would seem to bode well. After considering this, I think I should have sold.
2. Minimize potential future loss
Another possible approach is the floor optimization routine that I have been working on. The output from this suggests that the minimal loss cutoff is -0.01 % for day 8. The stock closing below this level again suggests that I should have sold the stock.
Unfortunately I didn't. Another decision to make tomorrow.
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