July 29, 2010

For the next couple of days I will have my eye on two stocks. Integrated Silicon Solution (ISSI) and Mindspeed Technologies (MSPD). I'm waiting on one of them to bounce. MSPD has bounced off of its 200 day SMA twice this month and is approaching it again. ISSI is down 10% today as I'm writing this, but it's still up 14% since July 20th. It's also nearing its 20 and 50 day SMA. The Market guys say to buy on a green candle that creates the pivot point so that's what I'll do. With their strategy, you don't get the bottom price on the buy, or the top price on the sell, but you should get a big chunk out of the middle. It's like cutting a pineapple before you eat it. At the end of yesterday the scoreboard reads:

Me 16.14%

S&P -.80%

July 28, 2010

I sold Apple today for $260.44. I did this partly to lock in my small profit of 2% before it has a chance to drop like my last trade, but also because I want to wait and see if the market is hitting resistance or just going sideways before it goes up again. I've done much better (and worse) on previous trades. I know 2% doesn't sound like much, but if you made 2% every week you'd end up with a 104% return on the year. A small victory is a victory nonetheless. I will update the scoreboard tomorrow.

July 22, 2010

Well, my 13% ytd yield included my purchase of SDS that lost money on the 15th. On the 14th I was actually up 15.57%. I'm glad Etrade has charts in my account to keep track of this. It makes things much easier. As of yesterday, July 21, the scoreboard reads:

Me 13.57%

S&P -4.08

July 21, 2010

Well, I exited this trade at $33.41 when the market opened today. A loss of a little over 1%. In hindsight, I should have put in my trailing stop order when I was up 3% to lock in my profit. I was trying to be patient because I really believed the market was going to drop more than it did. The S&P is rising up to the 50 day SMA. If it can break through resistance, the market will have a much more positive outlook to me. I may enter another trade later on today. I will update my yield tomorrow, because it takes a day on Etrade to update.


I ended up buying Apple at $254.87 right before market close. I've had pretty good luck buying this stock around $250. I've never bought stock when the chart looks like this one does. It gap opened today 5% higher than yesterday's 4% gain. However it came back down to close only 1% higher. My thought is that the reason it came back down was because lots of people were selling to take their two day 10% profit. I'm banking on it going back up the next few days. We shall see.

July 16, 2010

They say that the goal of every investor should be to outperform the S&P 500. If you're not doing that, then you may as well invest your money into the S&P 500 exchange traded fund (symbol: SPY). As of yesterday my YTD yield is 13%. The S&P 500 is at -1.67%. So far, so good. After each trade is completed I will update my yield vs. the S&P.

Yesterday, I bought shares in a fund that is short the S&P. I am expecting the market to continue its downward trend. I plan on keeping these shares until the market finds support.

Symbol: SDS at $33.80 per share purchased on 7/15/10