Month: January 2002

On holidays in Queensland and having a losing open position is stressing me.

Sell so I can at least enjoy my holiday.

Plus I can return and trade without waiting for my stocks to recover.

Stuff happened (in an earlier version of the website) and this diary was lost.

I’ve rebuilt the trading history from my records (and a backup) but have don’t have all the reasoning.

Often on the losing trades that follow there was a day or two when the sell target was reached, but I didn’t have the sell order in because I was too busy.

Live and learn.

Stop loss set at -$1.00. Had to learn that lesson sometime.

NCP opened at 15.00 so I placed the order.

I am worried that if it hits 14.90 it will keep falling as a key support will be breached.

But I’m testing a system and I’ll be in meetings most of the day. Here goes.

NCP opens at 14.90 but I didn’t have an order in!

It climbs spending most of the day below 15.00 before closing at 15.05.

I placed an order at 14.90 in case it dropped.

Ouch! NCP opens low at 15.14 and trades lower spending most of the day below 15.00.

The strategy calls for buying more stock if it drops another 2.5% to 14.90 which it nearly did. NCP closes at 15.04.

My strategy is to buy at 2.5% off the previous peak close which was 15.66 on 7 January.

After that trade the market fell to 15.15 and bounced there for a while.

I was preparing a top up order at 15.17 when my team leader came by for a chat. Buy the time the chat was over the market was back to 15.25. Missed opportunity.

The ride has been chaotic over the last few days. But the profits are good.

By way of clarification I pay $31.90 per transaction through Quick.Broker on a $25,000 parcel it represents less than $0.04 per share (counting buy and sell commissions).

After yesterday’s emotional roller coaster it is time to exit and make a considered re-entry.

The market opens at 15.55 but it is down to 15.40 before I can get near an internet connection to sell.

I place a sell order at 15.45 and go do some work. During that time the market recovers to 15.50 before it settles back to 15.40.

I’ll do some hard thinking but I will probably buy back at anything below 15.40 tomorrow.

Decided to try a day trade after the NCP market opened aggressively down to 15.27 then moved up smartly to 15.38. Placed a buy order in for 1700 at 15.33 and amended it up for price and quantity.

An hour later it’s down to 15.31 and looked bad. But it picked up and spent most of the afternoon at around 15.39 (breakeven).

Suddenly at 2:45 it moved fast to peak at 15.48 then falling straight back to 15.39. Then it did it again! Why didn’t I place a sell in at 15.45?

I’ve noticed NCP trades in a 0.20 range. 

Lesson #1 if I buy at 0.10 above the low then I should sell at 0.20 above the low for day trades.

Lesson #2 keep a clear exit strategy when I buy.

What a day! I went for a late lunch at 2:00pm happy that NCP was happily above 15.70.

I came back at 3:30pm to discover it at 15.48 (choke!). Nearly 2% off high is a clear sell to me.

I am beating myself up for not taking 3% at 15.74. But that’s why I’m keeping this diary.