:eek: What did you see in this monster? What was your initial stop? I see that you sold at 57.20, but you held this thing down through to 55, a $400 unrealized loss! I think it's a good idea to move to a programatic stoploss. Hopefully this will eliminate those broken stops and reduce the bleeding. If you're going to restrict yourself to four trades per week, then you have the luxury of taking only very choice setups. It might help if you get very specific with what setups you will take so you can focus on searching for setups and refining your system. You can borrow from others, like O'Neil's CANSLIM or try following SpyderTrader's Hershey Journal. There simply is no room for "impulse" trades if you are placing these restrictions on yourself. Maybe you should consider setting a maximum dollar amount that you are willing to risk, then based on the stock and its S/R points, adjust your position size. Otherwise these trading rules look like an improvement. I hope that they help.
7/27/06 bought 100 ANDE @ 38.65 profit target 40.00 stop 36.00 8/4/06 sold 100 ANDE @ 39.08 profit 29.00 thats about .51 cents an hours pay. lol Reason: I bought this stock because the charts looked good. Little did I know that ANDE was reporting the next day. The stock was expected to be higher than expectations, but instead the stock droped. lesson - Always check for major news events before buying. Traders cannot ignore the news because its such a driving factor in stock price.
7/31/06 Bought 50 of AAPL @ 67.90 target 70.00 stop 65.00 8/2/06 Added to position 100 @ 68.60 target 70.00 stop ? 8/4/06 short 100 AAPL @ 65.24 target ? stop ? Sell 150 AAPL @ 65.57 cover 100 AAPL @ 66.32 profit - 562.50 Reason: AAPL was in a nice uptrend and I wanted to get in. Technicals looked good too. Lesson: Read the news before buying. Same mistake I made on ANDE. --
they double your buying power, don't ever use this extra buying power until you know what you are doing. you might be a intuition trader, in that case write down your feeling and see how close it matchs with the reality by end of day.
next time u trade high beta stocks u might want to consider purchasin' slightly deep otm puts/calls...they relatively cheap and will protect u from huge gaps...it worked for me: with a few contracts u want make a ton of money if the move is not substantial but u wont lose your shirt either in case it goes against u big time in no time.
there is hope for you http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=74351&perpage=6&pagenumber=1
7/27/06 Bought 50 ANDE @ 38.65 8/4/06 Sold 50 ANDE @ 39.08 profit 29.00 ---- 8/8/06 Short 50 DISH @ 34.95 8/9/06 Cover 50 DISH @ 32.42 profit 112.50 ---