I have learned stop losses work really well.

I learned I'm a lot better at playing puts than calls in a volatile market.

I learned to not be too eager and take profits too soon.

I learned my wife ets REALLY angry when i put too much into a speculative stock and it
blows up on me (Citi and Sonus Pharm).

I've had a ball in 2007, though.

what i'm going to incorporate now is waiting for the right pitch, not just jump on the
band wagon when i find something with potential...there's plenty of fish in the
barrel...there will always be market selloffs providing opportunity to get in at a better
price.

Last edited on: 01-01-2008 01:46 am

i mix trading with investing. i invest in the stock until i hit my strike price to get
out...i've sort of blended jim's rules for investing with his rules for trading. if my
first initial position happens to hit the target, then i'm out. if i get a pullback after
my first...but its got to be a major pullback, not just 1 or 2 pts, about 7%, then I add a
second position...i had one position once, that i was 19% down, well I had added 2 more
positions, and when that stock went back up the initial position was still 2% down but the
additions had put me in the money.

I don't. I just use my own intuition having honed it by some doozies. Lately, my
intuition tells me to not sell or buy anything, but to accumulate cash so that I'm ready
for the next very bad day. Can't wait. I love bad days.

(::)

So Cory, how do you read the market in order to take its advice?

That I believe in the Market more so than the advice of anyone.

I invested in energy and didn't learn a damn thing.

Sophia, I hear you.
1. Trading around Core position/shorting vs. long term investing:
For those interested, I would recommend having at least two portfolios. One portfolio
is a long term, long only, unhedged portfolio. The others, is more of a trading (around a
core position), long/short type of portfolio. See which one tends to outperform for you
and which you enjoy better.

2. "Buy and Hold".
yes, I definitely hear you. Looking back, I learned that Valuation does matter! But
there are many stocks right now which aren't overvalued due to falling interest rates,
global growth, reasonable PE in S&P 500, low inflation. href="http://techfarm.blogspot.com/2007/08/lessons-learned-from-last-bear-market.html">
Some Lessons Learned from the Last Bear Market . Also, we don't have to Hold all the
way. We can sell stocks, and rotate into stocks that are working and reasonably priced.

I basically follow gmartin's approach. One of Cramer's tidbits that sticks with me is
having conviction. If you own a stock, you own for solid reasons and you know that stock
will be back. I remind myself of that frequently in downturns so that I find I am able to
hold on to my best stocks (always having previously taken some profits - another one of
Cramer's investing rules). "Patience, perspective and level-headedness" I think follow
from having conviction in your stock picks.

That said, I am still mindful of the days of the end of the tech bubble and the era of
"buy and hold". I bought, I held and I lost big. I am much more skittish now about
sell-offs and much less confident that they are temporary (especially when the air is
coming out of a bubble). It can make it tough to stay in. I have to remind myself that you
can't make money if you aren't in the market. I managed this one well with about 25% cash
throughout and able to trade around some stocks (CROX, DECK, TNH, VCLK for example.)

At the same time, I would like to really ramp up my gains by doing more shorting and using
some options. Options I have learned are perfect for protecting gains: it is the way to
buy some insurance. THAT is something worth doing.

Last edited on: 09-25-2007 09:07 am