============== Matt; sounds like you are upset because you violated your trading plan, & that was understandable with Greece on a slippery slope down. $28 area was a resistance on 1 year candlecharts, many were selling for 3 days before that. I like swing trading good uptrends & good downtrends. But i also agree with your trendlines; which show more of a sideways slop trend. So any 1 year resistance is a good place to exit/especially with earnings call, in my plan Backtest all you want , you may find some wisdom there; but even with profitable discipline, you are almost always going to close a position early or late. So not because of Greece, but so many price reasons to close that MSFT trade/investment early.
Great advice, but tough to implement: You want to be closing out profitable positions LATE (some give-back) and losing positions EARLY (prevent even more losses). Do the reverse, and the market will take you out of the trading business in no time flat.
================= FEB, 2012 AD[All data] I see you points and agree with them. It may never get easy, but it surely can get easier; with enough years work. So much money has been made with your/my comments, & low probability trend trading.I like to study high probability trend trading also, not that that's the most profitable way to trade. MSFT looked/looks like a sell @ $28 area; on most all time frames, except the longest /investor time frame., & still looks like a sell.If i missed a 10% last part of the move; thats just part of trend-trading/investing.I can find better probability longs; trading/investing. Looked on my MSFT paper charts, all data[AD]; its still an uptrend . But while its a great stock/leader/uptrend ; QQQ, AAPL ,UGA[unleaded gas]are very , very, very extended[monthly, weekly, daily. Silver, SLV did go up 7 days in a row, so MSFT could uptick a tad or 2 to more. LOL