testing the waters

Well, after watching both JOYG and ERS continue to climb higher and
higher each day, I finally decided to try and get in on them. I did it
in a very risky manner, though, buying after open.

JOYG shot up after open, and as I tried to put my buy order in, it was
already dropping. I bought it less than open, but more than close. ERS
I tried to buy using a stop-limit order, not buying unless it went
higher than a certain price, but then I decided to just buy with a limit
at 37. Well, it took ameritrade a while to cancel/replace my order, and
I'm sitting there waiting for it to execute, but the stock continues to
fall. Finally it goes down into the 35s before starting to come back up
and I bought at 36.37. It closed at 38.16. But I have a 4% stop on it
and an 8% on JOYG, which I consider to be less risky. I wonder if that
has any bearing on anything?

Anyway, the whole plan was to do a small "test buy" on each of them,
set close stops, and then buy more of whichever performs better. ERS
had a worse day, but I bought at a better price, so I may have skewed
that experiment. We'll see.

I'm thinking about dropping MXO at open. It's 5% down, and hadn't been
doing much, until two days ago when it shot to 10, and today when it
dropped back down to $9.37.

NWRE I'm not sure about. I have a stop set below the 50dma, but I
really don't want it to get down there. Again, this was bad timing on
the buy. Well, not really, I bought at $0.10 over the pivot, it just
happened to be the high for the day. Anyway, I'm down 11.5%, and
earnings come out next week. I'm tempted to hold it till then to see
what happens. But that kind of stuff is either very good or very bad.
Of course, I've already got my stop set and will lose only slightly
more, but the potential for upside is much greater.

Of course, this goes against everything I've ever read about selling a
stock that is down. Everything (except Cramer) says to liquidate a down
stock. There is nothing that hoping will do. And holding a loser and
having it come back is even more dangerous because it teaches bad
habits. I need to become more unemotional about these things and less
afraid of being down so much. Seeing that $434 that I would lose is
what's keeping me from doing this.