Hold Fast

Break-even since November, when the trades started flying. The stocks that I held on to were all up today. Hoorah! The blind squirrel found an acorn.

The stocks that I sold Monday are all plus since. RTSX was undergoing a shakeout by the market makers or something. Like sappers testing the perimeter, the selling took out a certain number of stop-loss triggers. I would have recovered my eight percent paper loss within 24 hours, had I held fast. By today the shares would be worth more than I paid. Feh!

LCI had gone down every day, and a thirteen percent loss is all I could stomach given the Monday indicators. It went down a little further Tuesday and Wednesday, then today it gapped up past my sell point. All it took was a measly 25,000 share purchase at the open.

By today I would be at break-even had I held onto CVH. That sale was pure reactionary anxiety. I bounced out of there with a four percent loss. What a short memory.

I bought VLO in April after the Premcor deal. Then they slid about twenty percent. I never thought for a second about selling. That turned out to be a decent trade after all. I was convinced that the company was undervalued. The market is still teaching me about what true 'valuation' is.

Today I had several limit orders waiting for the market open, none of which were filled. I like the idea of setting my price, psychologically. I was counting on a two percent correction in the market today. Looks like a santa clause bounce, in a market that acts like rate hikes are over. Who knows, maybe they pause at five percent. The talking heads all flap on about the yield curve, is it inverting. Whatever that is.

I'm in again with limit orders for pre-market action: $21.62 for ISSX, $10.62 for WPCS, $31.99 for CMTL, $15.49 for ERES, $24.48 for NWRE, $23.37 for EFD, $37.62 for DF, and $7.77 for SNWL. Keeping an eye on FRO. When it tests $36 again, I want to buy and beat the dividend-runners. I've sorted the portfolio alphabetically, instead of by dollars. That screen is what I imagine smoking crack to be like: highly addictive and able to distort the truth. My short term goal is a four percent return by tax time.