w/e 1-4post mortem, page-35

chook - when I post my week's lament I copy and paste from Word on my trading computer. The beast runs Windows 7 in 64bit mode (i think) this had given me grief with running my Excel which tracks my protfolio instantaneously. To run it successfully I need to start both Explorer and Excel from a directory in C drive.

It also gives me grief when trying to post on HC - either the whole text goes invisible or as was the case last night it just displays the whole document one letter per row; it makes it very hard to edit.

On the size of my investment: I have chosen (with the consent of my wife) to use a set amount, which if I lose the major portion of it will not affect our lifestyle greatly. Had I elected to use a larger amount I would not be able to recoup such amount at my stage of life without returning to work a lot more hours.

A fact I always try to remember is that there are two ways a stock can go - either up and down. The stock will not move up because I bought it nor will it move down because I sold it. Therefore I don't get upset if I don't get the ultimate profit that was available. But I do try to analyse why I bought a stock which failed. As far as selling is concerned I give myself loose goals as to how much I am trying to gain and only lift my offer if I see a lot of strength on the buy side. I don't analyse why I didn't let my profit run. I worries me that I may get greedy that way and often I have seen a stock go higher than my expectation only to retreat and then languish.

To reinforce that point I look at charts of companies which I conisder director's snout feeders. The occassional spike and than the flag, usually well below half mast.

I am looking forward to next week as there is a positive feel. I am holding UXA for a quick trade hopefully on Monday; KIKO which is now a reduced holding with the view of watching and trading if it lets me; MCX which is now back to my entry point and hopefully follows those other shells; and SIP for scalping on Monday or hold to receive the fully franked dividend.

As for stop loss; I don't use it as I have the luxury most times to watch the market and hopefully detect a downward move before it is too late. I tend to trade less volatile securities and a triggered stop loss could be disastrous. However I can see that a stop loss is almost a must if you trade and are not able to watch frequently.

I just love this thread as there are many ideas networked; Thumbs up chook.

W2