Thursday, October 21, 2010

A fish story

There are times - far more than I'd like - when I get it wrong. It happens, I learn, I move on.  Anyone who says they get it right all the time is a liar.

But this week I did get it right and made zero money. I had a buy trigger on EBAY on a pullback. The stock broke resistance last week and due to its big move I wanted to let it cool off. A dip down to test the breakout was the way to go and I set the trigger in the newsletter at 25.10.

As you can see, it took off without me and worse, without my subscribers. All for a lousy three cents.

Since the newsletter is daily, not intraday, I had to set a firm trigger. Traders might say they saw momentum shift on 10-minute charts with a volume surge right at the low and could have bought. Be honest - would you seen something near the low of the day to tip you off?

In retrospect, perhaps the trigger was too conservative. It did not seem that way Tuesday when the market bonked as there was a chance it would keep going lower. It did not seem that way Wednedsay when the market was up big and this stock just sat.

With the benefit of hindsight, I see a rather beefy rebound from the lows Tuesday but again, who really would have had the nerve to step in to buy a stock Wednesday that was left in the dust?

As they say in the locker room - @#$%^

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