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.