Sorry to hear about your loss. That's painful. One bit of info
to throw in with your other thinking about this -- if you only
trade ETFs you're less likely to have such a catastropic move
because usually those are company specific. Of course when Matt
nails a move it's a beautiful thing so you'd be giving that up. A
trade-off as usual.
Posted by philosoraptor on 9th of Jun 2009 at 06:37 pm
I have no idea what happened with CNB during the course of your
trade [i.e. whether you were in profit at any stage], but remember
Matt's mantra that he often repeats in his newsletters:
"after an inital good move, take half off the table and move
your stop up to the entry/breakeven price, thus guaranteeing
profits" (or words to that effect)
Of course, whenever you keep a trade open overnight, there is no
such thing as a 'guaranteed' stop loss. However, by locking in
profit on half of one's position during the trading day, any
alarming price movement overnight only affects the remaining half
and by definition mitigates any losses.
Thanks guys. It was a normal position size for me, with
not a lot of risk at my stop price. However, that was about
$0.40 higher than I sold for! Which is what makes it so
painful. I normally trade the ETFs but there hasn't been much
action there lately so I've taken to individual stocks. This
is precisely why i don't like to trade them! I'm not a very
good stock picker either so I'm usually better off with the
ETFs. This isn't a huge set back, I will recover, just want
to learn from these experiences.
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Sorry to hear about your
CNB
Posted by bkout3 on 9th of Jun 2009 at 06:27 pm
Sorry to hear about your loss. That's painful. One bit of info to throw in with your other thinking about this -- if you only trade ETFs you're less likely to have such a catastropic move because usually those are company specific. Of course when Matt nails a move it's a beautiful thing so you'd be giving that up. A trade-off as usual.
I have no idea what
Posted by philosoraptor on 9th of Jun 2009 at 06:37 pm
I have no idea what happened with CNB during the course of your trade [i.e. whether you were in profit at any stage], but remember Matt's mantra that he often repeats in his newsletters:
"after an inital good move, take half off the table and move your stop up to the entry/breakeven price, thus guaranteeing profits" (or words to that effect)
Of course, whenever you keep a trade open overnight, there is no such thing as a 'guaranteed' stop loss. However, by locking in profit on half of one's position during the trading day, any alarming price movement overnight only affects the remaining half and by definition mitigates any losses.
Thanks guys. It was a
Posted by lucy on 9th of Jun 2009 at 06:34 pm
Thanks guys. It was a normal position size for me, with not a lot of risk at my stop price. However, that was about $0.40 higher than I sold for! Which is what makes it so painful. I normally trade the ETFs but there hasn't been much action there lately so I've taken to individual stocks. This is precisely why i don't like to trade them! I'm not a very good stock picker either so I'm usually better off with the ETFs. This isn't a huge set back, I will recover, just want to learn from these experiences.