My First Trade! - STP - Advice?

take out half and let the rest ride...chart dont looks pretty good.

 

I agree, and what made you choose STP?..it has no history on weekly charts. But maybe that doesn't matter.

 

oopsy, i meant chart looks pretty good, forgot to get rid of that 'dont'.

well...whatever

 

Thanks for all the good replys.

I entered the position for the following reasons - market as a whole was up for the day, the candle-stick pattern was very bullish, it appeared to be bouncing off the 50-day MA, and it broke through some resistance at around 28.00. The RSI was also hooking upwards from down low. They're fundamentals also arent very shabby.

When I initially bought it I set my stop-loss .02 (27.51) lower than the lowest it hit during its early august leveling-off. As the price went up however, I set my stop-loss higher over a point higher, to the point where even if I got stopped-out, it would be a reasonably profitable trade... I'd be satisfied.

If it went up, I had no definate plans of when to sell. I figured it would be a better idea to watch it carefully when it approached resistance areas (~29 and ~32) and decide then. Is this not a good idea?

Also, one post referred to re-setting my stop loss to "BE", but I'm not familiar with this term... can somebody help me out? Thanks

 

I'm not sure what weeklycharts is? I chose the stock because I was somewhat familiar with it when I traded it in an alternative energy stock trading simulation. Then I saw it again on americanbulls.com as one of there featured stocks so I just followed it from there. Then all signals said go so I bought it.

 

BE = Break Even

Sounds like a well thought out plan. Managing your profit at this point will depend on your what strategy fits you and your personality. You could hold onto the whole thing and wait to see if it reaches the $32 level. You could take some of your position off the table at $29 and let the rest ride. If you do the second option, you should consider putting a stop in at a point higher than breakeven on the rest of the position. The second option books profit on some of your shares and gives the stock some room on the rest of your position to reach a higher price target.

 

What do u mean?

 

re-read my last 2posts...i forgot to delete 'dont', so i meant that the chart looks, infact, good.

 

and now all clear

 

Can you tell us which stock it is you trade?

Stop-losses are not as simple a situation as they might appear. There are many types of stop-loss orders such as trailing stop, stop-loss limit, stop-loss market, etc.

You can have an accident with a stop-loss if your not careful. Lets say you place a stop-loss market type order on a thinly traded equity. A market order placed just right can execute at a much lower price then you expected on a thinly traded equity causing a loss.