Cramer is an investor, while, with only 4 million shares, and a volume of 26 million, this stock is a pure speculation play right now. So, it could go up or down without reason in a blink of an eye.
You know I'm probably gonna be the only one to to say this but the fact that you got lucky on a crap shoot like BIDU is only gonna hurt your future progress in trading. Your head is overblown and I have no doubt in my mind that you will touch this crap in the upcoming week, get in with 100 shares, watch it drop 3-4 points in 2 seconds, be unable to take the loss (I mean how could you, you made 3 GEES in it before), take another 100 shares, watch it fall more and then blow out. WTF are you even doing trading smth like BIDU? Those who read your journal have told you many times to stay away from these types of stocks. You simply do not have the skills, experience & capitalization to play on that turf. If I was your group leader, I would have blocked that from your account. Noone in our group except me touched that piece of crap and I would not even do 100 shares in it, I traded it with a whooping 10 SHARES for the simple reason of risk control. Even the crazy asian supertrader did not touch that BIDU and he has down days of 20k sometimes. Yet he called BIDU a complete gamble and even though he takes some serious losses, he will not gamble. But you probably think that you're a super trader now and continue on. My guess is that you will be out of the trading profession before the summer is over. You were given all the advice you ever needed on this site but you just refuse to follow it.
Let's say you're long NTES at 75. Where would you rather sell: at 78 on the way up or at 78 on the way down? I rather sell at 78 on the way down, because you're selling into weakness not strenght. Basically, I as long as I'm seeing higher highs and higher lows I want to stay long until I see lower highs and lower lows. I was long BIDU at 73. And since it was so volitile intead of just holding my winner I started trading it actively. I had some small wins and small losses, but I managed to catch 3 10 point moves. Had I just held towards the end when the rally fizzeld out I wouldn't made about 5k without all the stress of getting in and out trying to catch every wiggle. That's just for daytrading. As far as swing trading and longer-term stuff. I remember my friend telling my he had 1000 GOOG Long at 90 and he sold at 91. Now this guy makes 500k a year trading but not without a lot of stress, screaming, and yelling. And he trades mostly, energy, homebuilders...all the hot stocks. If he had just held a lot of his winners he could make a lot more money without all the stress of trying to catch every move every day.
If I were daytrading a stock and it hit my target price, yes, I'd wait for a pullback before selling. With options, I'm a little more strict. I'm usually trading 10 lots and only aim for a .15 to .20 profit, so a pullback can mean missing 1/3 or 1/4 of the profit on the trade, so I usually close the trade soon after it gets to the target. Basically, if I'm selling, I'll place the closing order 1 tick above my target, set an alarm to sound when the bid is 1 tick below my target, wait for the bid to hit my target, then watch the size at the bid dwindle and try to hit it just before it drops down to the next tick. Things are even trickier with NTES options because during a pullback from a rally the option IV will drop drastically and so will the option prices and your profit can evaporate. Yesterday, during the small rally NTES had in the morning, when it was at $75.45 and heading upward at 09:55, you could sell an August 75 put for $2.50. When NTES was at $74.9 and heading downward toward its opening price 22 minutes later, you could sell an August 75 put for $2.55.
ever consider holding a base position and trading around it with the base at a deeper sell stop. ie buy 1000 shares, sell 500, but keep 500 as a base and trade around. you can satisfy your subconscious desire to take profits while also holding for bigger gains.
There's of course conflicting advice about this: some people say "let your winners run" and others say "have strict price targets". I am a bit disappointed that I sold all my ATVI when it hit 19.7 the day of its earnings report, but it had hit my target, and past experience is that it pulls back a lot after earnings, so I got out as soon as it pulled back slightly just after the rally at the open. It got up to 20.68 a couple hours later. I've forgiven myself. What has managed to reduce my stress is to buy put options on the indexes during volatile periods like earnings season. I made out well during January and April, I lost this past month, but all in all it reduces my portfolio's volatility.
Have to agree with this post. I watched the stock from time to time while I was in a short position on YHOO. No way I was going to gamble my account principal on this. With that said, I am going to watch it. When trading stabilizes some and shares are available to short (not that I may short, just available). I may trade it if I see some trend or reaction on news, etc. If I do trade it, as with all trades, my position size will be based on simple risk/reward ratio.