Doing very well so far following my strategy for buying breakouts/pullbacks... at least for the amount of time I put into my actual trading (not the learning part, the actual execution, research, etc.).
Up 5% on my portfolio since I began using my strategy about half a month ago. If I end up +10% by the end of the month I think I will have enough empirical data to show that with disciplin I have a winning strategy.
Last time I traded my method with disciplin I managed to net 13% in a month. Then, I resorted to new "riskier" methods and lost it all plus some.
Did a little housekeeping work today on my orders:
Leaving SPN to run. Got in very early and feel quite comfortable on my position... I am not going to get jumpy and bank profits before my targets like I often do.
Letting PPD still have its room as well. Moving slower than I was expecting, but still has not come to my profit target.
Here is a question for me to reflect on, or for someone else to help me answer: If I am playing a breakout out of a tight range, is it reasonable to set my profit targets towards 2 x my risk (defined by the high minus the low of that range). My breakout style using interday charts and buying stocks making year or all time highs requires me to sometimes set some profit targets based on equal moves or just arbitrary sometimes(which i dont think is right). This is why I like my pullback strategy as it has good r:w usually and I know where to take my initial profits.
An example of this can be seen in PPD. I would preferably liked to have bought PPD at the bottom of the range (I thought it would breakout because the volume was telling me this), but I didn't get in on the bottom of the range because I wasn't filled. Therefore, I bought at the break of the range. I am trying to figure out if perhaps I should bank half of my profits at 1:1 R:W and keep my stop and that way I at least break even and the profit target is more reasonable than waiting for PPD to get to 70.
Or maybe... because of my risk tolerance, I am better suited towards buying bottoms of ranges and not waiting for the confirmation... Any opinions on this would be greatly appreciated.
I raised my stop on SRCL to 43.80 (stock split).
I am selling my whole lot of CVX tomorrow. Got lucky on the trade... but cannot read the volume and don't feel comfortable with the stock in general. Might regret this, but will see soon.
Getting out of GNA as well. Looks like might form a micro head and shoulders... and I simply asked myself, if I didn't have the stock already would I buy it now? The answer was no, so I am getting rid of my position for a net gain of 8%. Not shabby for a 2 week hold.
Banking half of AIRM tomorrow. Keeping stop at 32 still.
No more position research for a few days. Need to install TC2000 on another computer... had to send mine in for repairs.
