Quote from Rob on Business:
Palawan, do you trade full time? Seems you are a bustle of trading activity and very current in knowledge! Congrats on your successful management!
Lost a bit on my ECA-TC calls as underlying closed lower than yesterday. Trading range for the day indicates trend still likely there, so stayed in. Just noticed that clear candles near trend top characteristically don't move more than $1, which today was reached in the first hour, then slid from there. I stayed in, fearing I might miss the resistance breakthrough later in the day past $55 while I was busy at work. Always learning something new, even though I've spent hudreds of hours staring at and studying the same stock, trying to see how it works. Something I'm definitely not good at is knowing when to take money off the table, but I'm learning...
ECA-TC SEP.54 calls x 5 @$1.45
From someone who's never kept any money from this game...
Thanks, Rob. i'm not a full-time trader, but i do work for a semi-govt outfit and our work-environment is pretty lax. as long as we make progress on our projects and finish any high-priority work, our boss doesn't breathe down our necks and wouldn't say a word even if we're on the internet doing personal stuff most of the day.
I'm gonna try to be a backseat driver on your position just for today, and you don't have to listen to anything i say but maybe one or 2 items you'll agree with and next time, you'll be able to make a decision. i've been there and i'm still there many times when i freeze-up and can't do anything because i'm afraid to miss-out on some possible gains.
with your position, i would have closed it when there was gain. if you missed-out on selling it for a gain, then it would have been ok to hold it coz as you said, the trend is still intact (by your analysis)
reasons why i'd have sold it (but i don't know if some apply to you coz you might be trading in a non-US exchange):
it's close to the resistance level
the oil-related stocks i watch (RIG and OIH) were down
all 3 markets were negative (DOW, Nasdaq, and S&P500) - hard for a stock to be up on a market down day. like swimming upstream
weekend is coming up and don't like holding on the weekend as anything could happen (i.e. terrorist attack) - may not apply to a biotech company in which a catalyst such as some kind of drug announcement could take place over the weekend and may miss-out on some considerable gains
and if you don't agree with any of them, just remember one thing... this is a continuous game and don't feel that when you close-out the position and miss-out on the breakout, that you won't get another opportunity. there's a lot of opportunities that are gonna present themselves to you, and some may be better than this one. you wanna make sure that you have capital available when that happens.
how about closing the position whenever it gets close to the 55 resistance and buying back in when it does finally break it with follow-through? that might be a safer strategy even if you're buying at a higher price, or even if you might have to buy higher strikes (and hopefully longer time) options.
there have been times also that when i sell in the morning when it's still positive and there's a sell-off in the stock, it feels good to buy it lower right before market-close and hold it for the weekend knowing that you have a lower cost-basis and still have the possibility of cashing-in on a possible gap-up (if any) the following monday...
all of these are just in my humble opinion...
Best of Luck to you...
