Pupule's week in review: Oww!

Sold Yahoo and Disney for decent profits of 5.3% and 4.6%. A decent start, even if it required holding through almost two weeks of soap-opera wackiness on Yahoo's part.

Closed the week on a bummer, though, after mistiming Yingli. Down 12.7% in just 24 hours. Even though my flaky theories about the end of the week have some credence, I went against them. My theories?

1. Earnings reports released late in the week (Thursday or Friday) are usually bearish and negative and plainly suck. (And earnings early in the week are usually bullish, i.e. FSLR.)

2. A buy on Thursday is no good most times, and a buy on Friday morning is horrible.

3. The best time to buy is often at the closing bell on Friday.

All these have been fairly true, I've found. But I still bought Yingli Green Energy on Thursday at 24.80. Near its recent high (25.50). It sank the rest of the day, but finished at 24.88. Earnings report before the opening bell today was good, but didn't beat expectations. The run was done (18 to 25 in one week) and sellers stormed the castle. By the end of the day, YGE was below 22 and I wondered ... why am I still trading on a whim? I put my homework and caution into DIS and YHOO. With YGE, I did not respect the recent movement in the stock. I assumed. And you know what happens to people who assume. Yep, they are ASSes. I'm an ass.

So, I'm holding the bag on YGE, promising myself (again) to never buy a stock going into earnings. It's almost like former UH football coach Dick Tomey's philosophy about passing. He often said that three things happen when you throw, and two are bad: 1. completion, 2. incompletion, 3. interception.

Earnings? 1. The Co beats estimates and raises guidance, 2. beats estimates, neutral guidance, 3. meets estimates, but doesn't surpass. The latter two mean the stock plummets in this bearish market. That's what happened to YGE. And if I had waited until the close, I could've gotten shares at 21.65, if I wanted.

Some YGE enthusiasts would probably average down here, but I'm against that method. There's too much momentum, too many bears in the stock. It takes so little to beat YGE down and takes a lot to bring it back up. If the market retests recent lows, YGE will sink, perhaps all the way to 18 as it did last month.

Volume today was monstrous, the most ever in YGE. Gap down, 11 million shares traded... completely bearish. I would've been better off sleeping through the market yesterday and today.