Newbie venting thread…..

[deaddog]

The longer term on it I pay more attention to if I have one out of its norm when looking for clues as to why it’s out of its norm. My stocks gains over a period of weeks have no value to me. It’s what it did within those weeks (no matter the longer term direction) that I am interested in to determine if it’s going to be on my radar.

The 'Why" doesn't matter after the fact. Will you feel better about a loss if you know the reason?

If the stock fell it means that there was no demand and you had to lower your price to find a buyer. It jumped back up as soon as you sold because every exchange in the country was tracking your moves and a buy signal was flashed as soon as you closed your position.

 

[HuntingBenjamins]

OMG, that is a classic pattern. Nothing new here:

It will test the low, not the absolute low but the channel low. Then it will break that low as a stop run. Also often to a prelude to a good run up because the seller are done. If the volume is low and it moves up that is one thing to watch, if the volume is high, that is another.

It has not really broken until it does the above, bounces, and then breaks through to a newer low. Notice the channel test and then the bounce. Then the break where the stop occurred. The channel test and the bounce is not the place to panic nor is the new low. These are standard "pain" points for the channel traders and the longs.

So this is more a failure of chart reading and experience. On a channel trade, you can do 1/2 of the allocation at the channel low, then 1/2 at the break after the bounce. If you want to panic then you should be close to BE.

Best entry is after the test-bounce-break and it looks like doom for the Longs, but slows moving down. Reasonable exit is on the way up BEFORE (the recent high - 10%). Then move onto another setup, don't look back.

Notes: FOMO often cause an early entry on these trades. Long channels like this OFTEN break after a few tests.

ok noted. I have bought back in and averaged lower for a win successfully several times. Normally I would have rode this one out but since it was so far out of what I call it’s norm, only thing it left me with was there must be something going on that my inexperienced perception wasn’t seeing. Since my other loss happened the same way what I originally came out with is “if there’s no specific down catalyst it probably will come back” as they both did. But then after reading this board my thoughts are leaning towards should have stopped out sooner and if it does bounce grab it back but if it doesn’t loss will be minimized vs what I did lose.

 

[HuntingBenjamins]

The 'Why" doesn't matter after the fact. Will you feel better about a loss if you know the reason?

If the stock fell it means that there was no demand and you had to lower your price to find a buyer. It jumped back up as soon as you sold because every exchange in the country was tracking your moves and a buy signal was flashed as soon as you closed your position.

Lol! The why is only relevant for learning something. I would feel better if the why tells me something that I can use in the future to my advantage (I.e. the lesson).

 

[SunTrader]

..... But then after reading this board my thoughts are leaning towards should have stopped out sooner and if it does bounce grab it back but if it doesn’t loss will be minimized vs what I did lose.

Against the trend is low probability- buying a downtrend bounce. Doesn't mean you shouldn't if you know what you doing.

I know what I am doing, at least I think so after almost 25 years wink wink, but I still much rather have probabilities in my favor by trading ...... with the trend.

You have to keep in mind which side is strongest, long or short, in the current trend (the trend on the next higher time frame from your setup time frame) and go with that side.

Of course trends change all the time, especially on shorter time frames. But best to wait for that to happen.

 

[HuntingBenjamins]

Man…I just can’t get these exits right! I’m still experimenting with new scenarios. I had two that I held onto for the past couple weeks. LESL and TPIC. I bought both for the same reason. They both put out pre-guidance ahead of earnings that was not favorable and they both tanked from in the $10’s down into the $5’s. I saw this same thing a few months ago with Big Lots. It effectively cut in half for weak guidance. But I watched big lots to see how it played out. In just a few short weeks people forgot all about the bad guidance and it fully recovered so anyone buying that low and holding doubled their money.

Since LESL and TPIC are effectively in the same situation, they were easy buys for me. What I didn’t anticipate was both would be going through earnings. Once I realized this I wasn’t sure what to think. My thoughts were that the stock price already considered the poor earnings report. Two days before Leslie’s earning report it had gone up enough for me to make my biggest win to date so I took it and watched. Their AH earnings effectively matched their early guidance and the stock stayed flat with no real AH or early morning price moves. Then the market opened and that thing flew. Had I stayed in it I would have tripled my “win”. That’s ok..still got my biggest win to date and a good lesson.

Then came TPIC. Their earnings were not as great. Pretty close to their early guidance but way miss on EPS and the whole conference call was less than spectacular. I was up a pretty good lick on it through the day before and decided I’d ride earnings out but after they came out with the earnings they made me nervous. After hours and early morning were uneventful. (Which was good it didn’t tank AH) Then the market opened. It was pure turmoil! My break even point was even touched then it sat at where the previous day ended (giving me a fair lick) practically forever. All I could think about were the words I got on this forum “only reason I took a big loss is because I didn’t take a little loss”. It sat with the buy/bids all over and I threw in the towel and took a fair lick.

Then two minutes went by…..and you guessed it….it skyrocketed. Just two minutes longer and I would have quadrupled by win and instead the train took off without me.

Mind you I had nearly no experience with the effects of earnings. My lesson on this one, now proven twice, is that as long as the earnings don’t suck, if ur in one cheap to start with it’s probably gonna run in your favor.

I seriously need a better exit strategy. Hey good wins on both but they coulda been my mega wins. The lessons are priceless but still burning my ass!

 

[Overnight]

...My lesson on this one, now proven twice, is that as long as the earnings don’t suck, if ur in one cheap to start with it’s probably gonna run in your favor...

In my less-than-acute observations of stocks, earnings can be only half of the equation...Forward guidance on the earnings call that follows can have just as much, if not greater, impact on the movement.

...but they coulda been my mega wins. The lessons are priceless but still burning my ass!

As long as you have a "coulda'" hanging in your mind on your trades, every trade you make is going to suck, win lose or draw.

......Just two minutes longer and I would have quadrupled by win and instead the train took off without me...

And two minutes longer and the stock coulda' plummeted. Never second guess or mull it over. Just move on to the next trade.

 

[Bad_Badness]

Consider you are making decisions while the market is still resolving what to do.

Some people wait 2 days or a week after earnings to make decisions, avoiding the whipsaw action the day of earnings and reading too much into it.

In other words you are too anxious to get a "answer". Things were uncertain so you ended the trade.

There is a saying about being comfortable with uncertainty. In trading you need to be comfortable with uncertainty

 

[HuntingBenjamins]

In my less-than-acute observations of stocks, earnings can be only half of the equation...Forward guidance on the earnings call that follows can have just as much, if not greater, impact on the movement.



As long as you have a "coulda'" hanging in your mind on your trades, every trade you make is going to suck, win lose or draw.



And two minutes longer and the stock coulda' plummeted. Never second guess or mull it over. Just move on to the next trade.

Thx. I actually listened to the earnings call and it wasn’t very promising by my standards. I mean they aren’t going bankrupt any time soon or anything but there was nothing warm and fuzzy about it. It left a huge question mark in my brain on what the market was going to do. Compare that to anything you read about the earnings for AAOI as an example. They were super upbeat and that stock went flat out crazy today. I wasn’t playing it though because I thought their earnings were going to be missing expectations by far. I just watched and observed on the sidelines. Shows I don’t know much!

You are right on that 2 minute thing and in hindsight I don’t regret just taking the lick that I had. The buy/bid spread was just crazy and I didn’t have enough experience or confidence to feel it was going to go up after what I felt from the earnings. All good. Still left better than I started,