crazy MIKR action

I got out of MIKR on Tuesday at open. Monday it beat earnings, spiked
up, then fell 30%. Yowzas. That put me down 7% below my initial buy
price. The cool thing was that I had a limit sell order in for 21.98
and the high of the day was 22.37, so I sold 1/4 of my initial stake at
40% gain (after selling 1/2 at 20% gain). So the 7% loss was just on
1/4 of my initial position. I'm liking this partial sell setup.

I also got out of UCTT. It fell below the 50dma and recent support
levels. It might come back, but I wipe my hands of it. This was the
right move. It never did anything but setup lower bases. Not what I
want in a stock. I can pick up something better, like AB.

I'm also selling some of my NSTC. It had a big gap-down this week after
being downgraded, I guess, but has found support at the 14.50 range,
which is also the level it found in early Nov, so I'm holding some.

nice

You've gotta love looking on the IBD front page and seeing 2 of your
stocks make the top 5 most active list. MIKR had another 10% surge and
NSTC finally awoke, bouncing up 6% on huge volume. The nice thing about
NTSC is that it's almost 1/3 of my portfolio.

AOB continues to climb with another 5% upday and up 60% total for me.

And I did add GRRF. I meant to put in a market order for it, but
couldn't decide which I wanted last night, so I figured I'd do it before
open, but then I overslept. Doh. I got it at 17 instead of 16.45, but
it still went up 4% from there on the day. I might add a little more to
it tomorrow.

I'm proud of myself for a couple of things: for holding MIKR through
that downspell when it was negative for me to watch it come back to
being up 24%; for deciding on my own to get out of TCHC and see that
decision confirmed by Josh; and for recognizing that UCTT is getting old
the same day Josh says to take some off the table. I might not be
finding my own setups yet, but I think I'm learning something about when
to sell and when to wait.

Of course, all this talk might just be cockiness from having my acct go
up 4.5% today. The Fed meeting tomorrow could take the wind out of the
sails.

selling TCHC

I held this for more than a month and it never got more than 7-8% up and
has slowly drifted toward the 50day. The last few days look like
distribution, with Friday being a downday on big volume closing below
the 50dma.

I intend to add either GRRF or DLB.

Took more AOB off the table

Sold another 25% of my original stake this morning for 40% profit of
1.6R. Now I guess I'll let the last 25% ride until I see something
fundamentally wrong happen to it.

November recap

At the close of last week, I was down 28.5R, dead even from where I was
in my last recap after Nov Wk1, but up slightly since the beginning of
November, which is kind of a bummer with this strong market we've had.
I was up over 4R at one point, but the last week of the month brought me
back down. All my stocks have been acting well and I have reduced my
trading frequency.

Closed or sold part of 8 stocks in Nov:
CTRN gain 1.2R
MCRS lost 1.2R
WSTG lost 0.5R
MIKR gain 1.9R sold 1/2 pos at 20% gain
HMSY lost 0.8R stopped out at -9%
AOB gain 1.6R sold 1/2 pos at 20% gain
ULTI lost 0.5R failed ot break out, sold at -4%
UCTT broke even, sold 1/2 pos 1st day after failed to break out

I only opened 5 positions in November, compared to 13 in October, and I
am still holding 3 positions from October. Overall, I think things are
good. I am trading less, letting stocks run longer, and 4 of my 6
stocks are in positive territory. Everything I bought was at a proper
buypoint and done at open, and I have not sold anything unless it failed
to breakout or reached a profit target.

maybe I'm learning

I did not sell any MIKR after the big downday it had on 11/21. I had
planned to sell all my remaining shares, but Josh and MktSpec over on IP
made some good points and convinced me I was just trading scared, so I
held it and waited. It never did close below the 50dma and had lots of
support in the form of hanging tails.

Today, it came roaring back: up 16.5% and 200% volume. Hopefully this
means I am actually learning something from the experience around there.
I am happy that I made the right trade (or lack thereof).

Also, I looked back at the chart for ULTI, which I dumped at around the
same time as this MIKR panic hit me, and it went on to close below the
50dma, so I would have closed it out a slightly bigger loss.

AOB is approaching a 40% gain for me. I think I might sell 1/2 my
remaining 1/2 if it hits that mark.

steady now

Not much to report lately. A little fluctuation on the market this
week. Monday was a big down day, but things are recovering. I've
managed to keep from doing anything and my stocks are making new bases.
MIKR and UCTT in particular have found support at their 50dma and I've
still not sold.

But I do think I may be missing some upside. I wonder if I'm holding
these stocks too long waiting for something to happen? One problem that
I identified was that in the past I was over-trading, so I've tried to
hold stuff longer to give it time to go up and not get shaken out too
soon. But the flip side of that is that you want a breakout stock to do
just that: break out. If I buy something and it consolidates for a week
or drifts down a few percent, aren't I missing out on something else?
There's commissions to consider, but that's $10 round trip. I should be
able to recoup that by getting into a better stock.

I don't know. I think at this point in my development, I need to learn
patience and I think that might actually be happening.