almost forgot

I also bought CTRN today with my izone acct. Once I get out of JOYG and
ASVI, I will stop using my IRA acct for trading and just buy mutual
funds or ETFs with it and do all my trading in izone.

Anyway, CTRN bounced off 36 last week, climbed to 42 and fell again
Tuesday. I bought it at $39.19 on a slightly up day. Plan is to buy
more if it climbs 3%, then again if it climbs a further 3%.

Current holdings:
JOYG
ASVI
ABAX
CTRN

Tempted by:
CMED
NWRE

still in it

Haven't posted in a while. I'm still in ASVI and JOYG. ASVI has come
all the way back up and finally today passed the 34.11 mark. JOYG
closed at 60, not too bad.

Also had VIMC for a while there. Bought it at $18.75, watched it go all
the way up to 20.99 (while I wasn't looking), stared at it a long time
while it was at 20, and watched it fall again. Put in a stop at 18.50
before open today and it sold.

Another new acquisition was ABAX a week ago. Bought it with a lowball
limit order at $23.50. It was up to 25 at one point, but is now at
23.68. This is one I might hold for a while. I heard about it at the
dfwcanslim meeting a month ago, and it has since shot to the top 10.
Also, I have a trailing stop on it, now that I have an izone acct and
can do that.

joyg back in black

Of course, as soon as I bought JOYG, it dipped. For a while. Seriously. I'm sure by the IBD standard, I should have dropped it, but I held on. Friday it finally recovered above the $57.90 I paid for it to close at $58.67. I don't think it ever fell below it's 50 day moving average.

Now if only ASVI would quit hovering around $30 and get back above $34.

lookin' good so far

JOYG is 2nd on IBD's Top 100 this weekend. It's also at a buy point, according to them. I thought I probably bought too high, so this is good news.

bought JOYG on a dip

After JOYG rocketed up $8 on Wed, I put in a buy order Thurs morning. I was going to do a market order, but woke up late and sat around watching it rise and fall for a while. While it was in the 58s, I set a limit order for $57.90. That executed an hour or so later. It closed at $58.12 on the day.

I'm not sure this is a good time to be buying, and was hesitant to buy this stock after it went up so much yesterday. "Surely it will go down after that," keeps popping into my head, but that's emotion and I have to block that out. One of the thing IBD says is a mistake people make is being afraid to buy at a new high.

So here goes.

wow

ASVI closed at 32.94 yesterday. Today it opened at 31 and dipped all the way down to 26.51 this morning before recovering to 32.18.

I never did put a 7-8% stop loss order in for it, so it didn't sell. At 8% I would have sold at 31.38 (or worse, probably, as fast as it rocketed down), so it seems like I lucked out. I think for now I'll not do stop orders, even at drastic points, like 10% or %15, both of which would have been triggered today.

I might regret this decision, but we'll see. So far I've gotten out of a lot of positions on intra-day dips. GFIG is now back at $60. I got out of it on a stop order at 51.58 when it had a huge dip one day. Same thing with PARL: it dipped the day I bought (and sold) it, not that it's any higher than what I bought it at. MRVL dipped and is still down below what I sold at.

Hrm, so maybe my record is not that bad. It just irks me that GFIG is so high and I had it. If I would have gone by close price, I'd still be in it. And PARL, but MRVL closed low, so I'd still be out of it, which is a good thing, the way it's been down.

So, that's the new strategy. Base my selling only off of close prices.

ASVI

Tues 2/21 I bought ASVI at 34.11. I was also considering CTRN again. I logged in, they were both on the rise. CTRN went up $4 that day. ASVI peaked when I bought it, and is currently at $32.91.

IBD says that we are in a confirmed rally, since the Dow broke out, but I'm not so sure.

Also, CTRN is about to make a new high, so it might be considered again.

sure, now the market's up

After I get out of every position, the market turns. Dow's at a 5 year high.

Jeff suggested checking out SCHK. I'm not sure it hasn't passed the buy point, but it looks like a good stock.

no more stop orders?

So I know IBD discourages stop orders, and now I think I see why. It seems like every day a stock will drop and rebound a good bit as a natural part of the cycle. This increases the likelihood of getting shaken out.

I think from now on I'll base my sell decisions on close prices. Although, that could bite me if a stock drops like a rock, so I might still put in an emergency (like 10-12%) stop order.

Got shook out of PARL

Well, 7% was enough to sell. I'm left holding only MRVL.

IBD says that this is 5 distribution days for the NASDAQ, so the lesson learned is that I probably shouldn't have bought at this time, anyway. Now their recommendation is to wait for better buying signs before acquiring new positions, which is what I think I'll do.

PARL stop-limit order

Okay, I decided that with the market as funky as it is this week, I
can't risk holding PARL if it decides to dip. I put in a stop-limit
order for 7%/8%.

Now I'm sure to be shaken out, but that's okay, it may be time to chill
for a while, anyway.

current holdings

MRVL
PARL

But for how much longer? We just bought PARL on 2/8/05 at $35.25. After the weak day it had today, we're not much above the buy point (32.78/7% or 32.43/8%).