Lovely Saturday morning

The impeccable Koolau Mountains to the left. Diamond Head to the right. Well, if I could see through concrete walls, that's where I am.

Busy lately, as busy as ever, but not so much with lots of stuff as much as studying certain things like prep sports and the market. But what's equally interesting -- and sometimes painful -- is realizing that the biggest asset and detriment is myself. That's what the market always teaches: balance requires discipline, and that's always been one of my, uhhh, well it's never been a huge strength. Except for those springs and summers and falls when I diligently went to the park to work on my handles and pull-up jumpers.

Miles Ogawa was quite a teacher for me. He didn't coach me once I was done playing JV basketball, but his teaching/coaching stayed with me and I shared the zeal he had about defensive positioning and technique. His 60-shot drill stayed with me on those quiet afternoons at Ala Wai Park.

Anyway, Coach Miles was one of the very best. Thanks Coach!

I don't consider myself an athlete by any means, nor do I consider myself an athlete in the market, where most of us small fries are just trying to pick and choose our way to profitability. Learning to cut losses early and not just often, but ALWAYS, is a never ending challenge. It goes against some of my natural tendencies, like sticking it out when things get tough (perseverance). Bagholding a stock is not perseverance, though. It's stupidity and it can be costly.

I'm currently bagholding LVS and DNDN. I believe strongly that both will continue to rise and that there's no need to sell until then. I took a big hit in the past month on DNDN (should've sold quickly after it leaped to 28) and decided to sell at break-even after having a huge paper profit, then got back in, didn't sell while it was up and now it's down a few bucks; I also took a hit on BAC after earnings when it gapped down in the morning from near 11 to about 8-9. Instead of holding, I decided to get out. That was driven by fear, and apparently I was wrong to unload. BAC is now at 14.

Point is, this market rewards the good pickers and those who tune out just about everything in the media. It also rewards those who are disciplined and don't overpay at peak levels unless there is a catalyst. Example would be RIMM, which blasted through earnings estimates; recent numbers show the BlackBerry outsold the iPhone in Q1. RIMM won't come back down to 70 unless there's turmoil on Planet Earth, so it's up near 80 for some time to come. It's worth investing in on pullbacks.

Whatever the stock, though, a game plan is absolutely necessary. Sell on a slight dip and preserve your capital for lower buy-ins/better prices, or just wait it out like I should have with BAC. I did wait it out on BAC once. That took two weeks to recover, but it felt like two years.

I will continue to approach with a long-term outlook/hold on certain stocks (AAPL) and position trade on others. The bottom line, though, is whether I apply the game plan and get out of position trade losses ASAP. This past week was a personal record for break-even short-term trades, small-loss trades. That allowed me to be profitable for the week. Continuing to learn and focus on discipline: speed and commitment as a result of planning. A mix of break-evens, small losses and a few big gainers each week will equal profitability. I'm content to break even and that's a major step forward in my thinking.

See Trader Mike for some very solid reading.

Stop in the name of love

Stop-loss sell order kicked in on my FAS at 7.34 and C at 3.20.

Profit of 15 cents/share. Nice little profit for a two-hour daytrade. Probably should've sold near the high of 7.54.

C was a quick profit of 23 cents and 5 cents. High was 3.28. Never had two stop-loss sells happen in a 5-minute period before. Pretty cool. A lot more orderly, too.

Not a day trader, but ...

Even in the midst of an ugly tape, overwhelming bearishness today, Citigroup was probably a missed opportunity as a daytrade. Really.

C opened way down, 10¢ down at 2.62, but the push from Jim Cramer and Marc Saber got shares back in the green within 30 minutes. 2.72, the previous closing price, might have been a fair entry point. From there, it kept going straight up, all the way to 2.89. Exit point? 2.80, I think, which would've been 3% down from the day's high. That would've been a fairly safe, executable gain of 8¢.

Pennies? Not really. That would've been a fairly decent profit for one day in my perspective. C washed out the rest of the day, somewhat flat, and closed at 2.76 while the Dow was down 200 or so points.

To yo-yo in and out takes freed-up cash, which I don't have because of my horrible habit of chasing. I considered getting out of STP (down big today), but thought better of it. Also thought about dumping WFC, which was near break-even for the day until the final hour. Tomorrow's another day. Always a good time to rethink, regroup and be ready.

RIMM tempts again

Was quite tempting to pick up swing shares of RIMM in after-hours. As Big Ben delivered his speech on the side window of Kudlow's program, RIMM went from below 122 to 122+ within minutes. I did a little chasing with a buy order, but gave up after the stock went over 123. Yeah, had I snagged more shares at 122.10, I would be smiling right now. The stock closed AH trading at 123.50. But I didn't catch it and let it go. My long shares are good, but even with Big Ben's talk about the Fed remaining "flexible," RIMM is still very hot. The stock has run from a low of 96 in the past week-and-a-half.

If RIMM stays hot and runs more in pre-market, fine. But I'm expecting a bit of a selloff back to 122, possibly 121 before it takes off again. Technically, RIMM is due for a healthy pullback sooner than later, but I'm just looking for the best entry point possible for a short-term trade. Learning my lessons.

Long-term, this is not a buy at this entry point. Or is it? The MACD indicates a possible yes. But the stock is floating above all of its moving averages, which tells me no. So who wins: declining volume (bearish) or Big Ben's "flexibility"?

Good Pupule, Bad Pupule

My day started a bit frazzled, but even with my on-hand technology mired in mud, I managed to do the previously unthinkable: trade with discipline. Yep, got out of RIMM with a profit of more than 5 bucks per share. Then I did the truly unthinkable. I went against discipline, bought back more RIMM at high levels — 114.50 — and watched it sink, sink and sink.

Instead of selling at 114 or 113.50, I held, ignoring the fact that the stock had run from 97+ to 115+ in a matter of a few days. I gave up the thought of selling at around 111, simply because this is one of only four stocks that I believe will withstand the mightiest bear market, if it comes to that. So RIMM sank to 106, rallied back to 111 before the close, and finished at 110. In after-hours trading, it is creeping toward 112.

All in all, my good trade early was offset by an absolutely buffoonish trade that is still alive going into tomorrow's market. Good and bad, in one day. Those of you who rode RIMM early from 109 to 115, and late from 106 to 111 get a tip of the hat from me. I give myself a chorus of boos for undisciplined trading.

A small win in RIMM

Sold RIMM @ 113.90
Net: +5.20/share
Got up at 3:10 am (no alarm), fell asleep, had a really strange dream, got up at 5 am. That's 30 minutes after the open. Ugh. Then the laptop was slow, and eventually I restarted it. All that cost me a point or so since RIMM hit a high of 115.50 in the first half hour. But a win is a win, small or large. Of course, the stock ran back up to 114.66 a minute after my sell. Must have emotional distance.

Long-term shares still going strong.

Wild ride for RIMM

Entered a short-term position in RIMM at 108.70. Not the best entry point, and it came after the stock ran from below 104.65 to 109.74 after 2 pm Eastern time. Had my chance to sell at 109.69, but I got too optimistic instead of setting a stop loss to collect a small profit or break even. Quite a roller-coaster ride after that, and the stock sank to 106.27 in the final half hour before rallying to 108.02 at the close.

Considering the market was down (Nasdaq -43, -1.66%; DJ -218, -1.66%), my long-term shares in RIMM did fine by finishing in the green.

Apple was negative, down more than $2 to 164.05 at the close. AAPL actually hit a low of 162.10 intra-day. Nintendo was also down significantly today. Last bid was below 66.

RIMM battles back

The better daytrade was in Research in Motion, which had been crushed, devoured, brutalized, murderized, annihilated and pulverized by the institutional sellers for an eternity. The stock was already below its 50-day simple moving average before the market opened today, then dropped from 103 to 96.80. Then came the comeback.

The last time RIMM dipped beneath its 50-day SMA, three days of huge gains followed. Since we're not in Fed-cut mode anymore, this will be interesting to watch next week. I'm still long RIMM, but I felt more comfortable daytrading AAPL. That may change on Monday. Or not.

Good Apple for the day

Sold AAPL @ 166.75
Net +2.86/share
The strangest feeling, clicking the sell button on a stock with momentum just two minutes before the close of after-hours trading. My web browser stalled up, a rarity, and I shut it down. When I came back to my online broker, the sale had executed. What Jason Zweig said recently about the psychology of selling stocks is true. I'm like a lot of people, apparently, who are more comfortable with the feeling of holding a winning stock rather than locking in those winning profits (rRe: CROX, STV, LULU, etc.).

Though I had a sell price of 170 on my AAPL daytrade shares, I returned to discipline mantra: not to make decisions, but rather to follow rules and procedures and to act in accordance with policy. That means selling the daytrade shares. I could have rationalized that the trade isn't done, it could become a swing trade going into Monday morning. But the volatility of this week, so many down days, has me wary. I'd love to believe that the correction is done, but I can't. I think the market remains in erratic mode for awhile. Therefore, I will continue to daytrade a half-position in AAPL. If I can get nearly +$3/share as I did today with one trade, I'll be content.

If AAPL opens at 167 or 170 on Monday, so be it. Everything will depend on the market, on news. But if AAPL opens below 166 and the market is neutral, I'll look for a re-entry point.

X Factor: Volume was lower today and did not surpass volume of the previous six sessions. Not an overwhelming indication that Apple's rally will fizzle, but bullish either.

One-day chart below. I like stockcharts.com, but bigcharts.com has the one-day chart. I slept through the big run. I actually remember falling asleep as AAPL began to bounce of its low of 159. Told myself not to bottom-fish just yet. It was about 5:30 am Hawaii time. By the time I got up, it was after 7 am (noon Eastern) and the stock had already run to 167. Amazing. But I like the entry point AAPL gave me later at 163.89.

Sorry for the sloppy lines. I don't have a mouse, nor a pen thingie for the laptop.

170 is a longshot for today, but ...

... you never know! I put in a sell (AH) for the Apple daytrade shares at 170. AAPL closed the session at 166.32, huge move in the final 20 minutes from 164. I would like to hold the shares into Monday, but I put in the AH sell as a hedge in case it runs even more here. If it does somehow go to 170, I would expect a cheaper entry point sometime on Monday. I tend to think AAPL and RIMM will bounce big on Monday now that OE is over, but history shows that the Monday after OE is not a guarantee of a up market. If I get the sell at 170, no complaints or whining whatsoever with a $6 plus profit/share.

If AAPL doesn't hit 170 AH, I'm content to hold.

An Apple a day ...

Bot AAPL @ 163.89
Daytrade only. AAPL earlier dropped to 159.33 and ran to 166.74, but a) I didn't want to risk a return to the downtrend, and b) I slept through most of it. At 163, almost half the gain from the low has been given back. The stock is down 42¢, hovering at 163.90. The market is up (DJ +53/0.41%, Nas +8/0.31%) for now, could be a selloff toward the close because of OE.

This is like watching your brother, who was stuck on a deserted island for a week, finally get some water and food to eat. He gorges on all the chicken he can for an hour, then pukes it all out and nearly passes out. Now he's somewhat alert again, and he's eating again, but a bit more slowly.

Eat, Apple, eat.

Still have my long-term position, too.