Entered LUKO.Y position...

... and what a surprise: it slid even furter down. Hope recession is not starting tomorrow. I'd like to spend few more weeks pretending I can increase my IRA portfolio before I execute upon my exit plan. Pity I might not have enough to open a position in GRZZX. Luckily, I have only ventured a small fraction to risk in the stock market (cash rules, baby!).

Moving forward, few weeks of no-fee trades left

Finally, sold PNW at what essentially is the price I paid for it. What a waste of time. Now what? On prior occasion I contemplated investing in a few securities, let's revisit them.

MIDD, one I deemed most interesting. From the look of the graph and from past history (which we all know is a poor indication of future returns), needs to touch just below 120 before it may go up to 135.

SIMG is very close to its 52-week low and is more attractive than ever. TM is stuck at 120 with its planned American plants (understood by many to be a concession for unhindered claim to domination in its sector).

OYOG staged a healthy recovery from its recent dip. DWSN close but not as pronounced. My prediction on SLW was quite good (descended to 10.73, found support there and rebounded to 11.5), but no use for me.

The choice for tomorrow is between MIDD, SIMG, and LUKO.Y. The last one has been on my watch list (alongside with gas prices, which, it would seem, have firmly took the ground above $3 at the pump), and started recovering off recent lows. MIDD I know nothing about and SIMG is one I know little about. Which may be even worse as I managed to get some form of attachment to this underappreciated stock. That settles it. I'm placing a low-ball order to buy LUKO.Y at 75.59. If that order does not fill by the time I'm out of bed, I'll try to see what the trend is and project a more reasonable price... Or I may still go with something else.

Watch list for tomorrow

First, setting up a sell order on PNW at 49.50 and for DIVX at 18.23. Just because... just from looking at the graphs. Just to have something set up if I choose to not to get up too early. Getting up early every day is getting quite tiring, and it adds to disappointment as nothing changes and portfolio goes anywhere but up.

When I get up, whether those preset orders execute or whether I decide to sell for less, what should I buy? I think SIMG. Obviously I don't fully understand everything that is going on with this stock. This is a solid company that produced a lot of chips for HDTVs, at P/E of around 16 and at levels close to one-year low, I would expect it to rebound. Longer term, TM may become irresistible at some point. Say, $105?

DNDN is a nice speculative play, which began recovery, but not for my risk tolerance.

Other Motley Fool CAPS prescreened possibilities: OYOG, DWSN, PAL, KRY, SIL, ARTG, PRFT, SLW, CYBS, MIDD, BWLD, RTP, AAUK, BHP.

OYOG: from the look of the chart, seems to be in correction that may continue for another one to two months. If it gets below $66 closer to the end of that cycle, it would warrant more research and may represent a buying opportunity with perspective of growth to, hopefully, at least 85 before winter. But of no help to me, as significant movements upwards in very short term are unlikely.

DWSN: similar to OYOG, just scale the numbers accordingly :)

PAL: I'd shy away without further research as company has negative earnings. And same for KRY and SIL.

ARTG: has unfortunately shown tendency to return to P/E levels of 20 in its lows, from which it's a tad away now. Well, what solid growth would one expect from software consultancy? PRFT's chart looks better (robustness of upwards momentum is apparent), but still it's too expensive.

CYBS: while I'm myself employed in high-tech industry, never heard of this "secure blah provider". Not my cup of tea.

SLW: from the looks of the chart, if it proves 10.5 is impenetrable within the reminder of the week, it should rebound from that level nicely, to 11.2 the next week.

MIDD: something out of the ordinary, IMO. The chart implies extremely robust growth and investor confidence, with occassional profit takings by institutionals which, just like now, represent a rare opportunity to get in at a reasonable price point (Meaning, with less risk that the stock will go under for a brief while right after purchase. Which may not really matter, but for a beginner like myself, red positions in a portfolio are too unpleasant).

(Getting tired and it's time to go to bed) BWLD, RTP, BHP and AAUK: all only begin to correct. Check back in a month? Boy, it looks like I'm in a need of some tool to keep track of those predictions. Or, rather, in a need of some time to invest, as such tools should be available in many places online, and not in the least at my online broker's site.

Sunday: no investment research today

Instead, I'd reveal a shameful thing that I experienced today. The thing is called "Hot Fuzz", the movie, and it's the best movie I've seen in a while. Maybe on par with "Robin Hood: Men in Tights", not sure, need to watch it few more times.

What so shameful then? Few things: half-empty movie theater, for starters. Especially, in comparison with "Spiderman 3". And that's the second shameful thing: when it will come to grading movies, be it Oscar or anything like it, Spiderman will come on top, and Hot Fuzz will hardly be mentioned. Add all of the media, obsessed with "opening weekend" figures, what a shame.

The only measure of movie quality, except for it's entertainment value (across multiple demographics, like in our case, we went there the whole family of us and we shared the enjoyment), quality of work performed on all levels: from brilliant story, intricate scenario, meticulous screenplay (oh, my, how I loved all those "little" details intentionally brought into focus!), dynamic camera work, etc... almost forgot actor's performance, doh! The only measure should be "sustained performance": it would be measuring how slowly movie proceeds decrease from the date of release.

Market buying frenzy

This is not making me feel right, such wild gains (although those gains occur not in the IRA portfolio I'm supposed to be concerned with most at the moment). I may want to execute on exit strategy sooner than I thought. After all, what good are those small gains if recession falls on our heads not two years from now, but before year's end. Knowing well my nature to not sell losers in hopes they may recover, in recession scenario this will be catastrophic.

Should I relocate my money from "growth" stocks (honestly, haven't seen too much growth there either) into mutual funds? Those stocks that pay dividends may stay as they are. I started this course towards dividend stocks already with purchase of ASN and EPR. But boy, how disappointing is the fact that there's still no USU in my portfolio.

AMD is showing some promise lately. Shorts are steadily growing, and news of significant institutional invesment have lifted the stock from lows not seen for over a year. In fact, IMO, AMD has bottomed and if my feelings are correct and if there would be no recession within the next year, the stock would repeat its staggering performance of two-years-ago when it tripled over two-year period.

Correction...

...which is, again, nothing but an opportunity to find good stocks cheap. CHRT: been looking at it for quite some while and now the price is very reasonable. LUKO.Y, my favourite, it's time to get into it while it's cheap: oil will be costly as summer driving season is upon us. USU undergone a small correction: this may be an opportunity to buy that will not present itself for next few months as its growth resumes. NTDO.Y has corrected also, and there's plenty of momentum in this company still. Don't expect any setbacks for at least several months. ENER: tempting, but not a bargain still. Also, it's understood to be purely speculative stock so buying off lows would be, IMO, unwise. DNDN: there should not have been a doubt in anybody's mind that setbacks will happen and now you have it, off by more than 60% in one day. I think, similar to IMClone, this level of $14 the security has so hastily abandoned will be regained within, at most, 6 months. SIMG looks cheap and delicious.

Speaking of my actual portfolio, I'm still stuck with PNW and DIVX. Need to sell at first uptick...

Meanwhile, I'm thinking about exit strategy. And for that, I'm shortlisting BEARX, GRZZX, SH, RYURX, and also FXY and FXE.

Two days wasted for IRA game

Some technology conference took too much time... But financial matters did not release me from their tenets. Trying to log in to my Discover Card account, I am greeted with a prompt to enter THREE security questions. I recently bought a notebook from Fry's using this card. Many thanks to Chinese, although this widescreen dispaly has one permanently lit blue pixel, it's still a good deal: $399 for a notebook with Windows Vista Home, 512 MB of RAM, wireless networking - who would care to buy a (heavily) (ab)used notebook for comparable price (beat that, tigerdirect.com)?!

Anyway, I just wanted to pay my bill, and those suckers are telling me my password is not good enough all of the sudden. At the same time: I know they truncate my password. At the same time: I know they kept my "temporary" credit card number active so that PayPal charges are coming through unhindered. Additional security? Some marketing paranoic must be severely disappointed. Next day I dial in Discover card, I am f#$%ing closing my account. That's the only way to deal with as$%^*es who imagine themselves to be security experts. Somehow, when I call their landline (that they think) is secure, they can trust that last four of my social guarantee I'm myself. Idiots.

My entire SSN is for certian available somewhere. Otherwise, how would I have gotten a credit card backed by MasterCard (issued by one of participating banks) without allowing that bank to know my SSN. I remember that telemarketing call quite well. It starts usual, this and that, those are the benefits, would you be interested... Humm... am I deranged? Am I so severly mistaken in thinking that to issue a credit card a US resident needs to furnish a valid SSN? If so, please do tell me.

Anyway, feeling kind of bored with what I was doing those 4 years ago, I walk through the process with the customer service rep. Except, I refuse to give her my SSN. But was I surprised a few weeks from then!!! While I said that I would like additional information, I receive a full-featured, ready to be activated MasterCard in my mail. A call to the bank answers my surprise with a mailed brochure on "identity theft".

How ruthless... understandably, small banks have to exploit risky schemes to survive, but THAT risky? To obtain a person's SSN from third party? Friggin ridiculous. Don't approach me with security concerns, please! Just don't: I will ask for a security audit. (As a client, can I do that? Interesting thought.)

PNW drama

Wow, how nice and yet strange it looked. There must have been a lot of folks who wanted to sell at 49.30... for over 2 hours the stock could not punch through resistance at that level, but now that's over, it started steep ascent. Chances are looking better that set limit of 49.36 will be met. In fact, it appears tempting to cancel that order and wait where the next stability plateau will be :) But no, let's change the favourites in this race.

IRA game continues

At the beginning of the day, my picks show some movement upwards which improves my chances of closing positions in PNW and DIVX. What will I replace them with? Let's see...

USU, what an awesome company: keeps on going higher and higher, with very few meaningful dips: excellent choice for long-term investment, but not for my purpose. Will keep it on the radar for the exit strategy (when my free trades end up).

YHOO, down from the speculative boom on MSFT buyout breakup, but still volatile, yet with low downside risk and off it's month-ago high. Takes steps to reduce cost of operations (recent partnership with Flicr to manage all its photos).

IOTN, should probably shy away from it as it tends to drop suddenly and recover over an extended period of time.

CHRT is on the second leg of it's bullish retreat, there may be an opprtunity to buy at just under $8.

NTGR approaches its SMA 50 to go barely under and continue ascent, from how the graph looks. May be an opportunity to buy in second half of the week, at around $35.

Meanwhile, while I was writing this, PNW has established some "corridor" and I think I can set the sell price now. Jaust outside of that "corridor will suite me well. $49.36 is the limit price for the day.

DIVX is trending upwards, but there will be, I would guess, multiple resistance levels on the way up at "round" numbers like 17.5, 17.75. Let's not bee too greedy and set the price to high + $0.01. $17.46 it is.

Update: wow! Look how GROW has come down in price! Being a profitable comapny regardless of lower earnings, that may represent a great buying opportunity... just not yet. Stock has been volatile and before coming down today, it was up so much. And an inverse head-and-shoulders is not assuring much.

Fixing one's mistakes

There should be an important period, it occurs to me, in life of every investor (with the exception of unbelievably lucky ones), when a brutally honest analysis of one's flaws is performed. Take this week: I did not act on some stocks that would have paid off big, and I only acted on stocks that resulted in "portfolio" gain of less than 0.5%. The question that remains is, why? Of course this diary is not a sufficient recollection of why I made this or another decision.

I think one needs to spend much more time to learn what desisions where made, why, and only then one's character traits that act as obstacles on the way to higher returns could become apparent. I may improve on that right here and now, with exception of the fact that those decisions that I did not make, I would not recall reasoning behind.

I realize that emotional nature of my investment decision-making is a severe deterrent... And I can see that greed and refusal to accept mistakes are right there, front and center. I was (and still am) so sure that my picks must perform much better than they do, and I refused to sell them for what they were worth.

I need to keep more detailed record of my indecisions and after the fact perform comparison of what is vs what could have been. If only I had time... It's so much easier to frantically navigate from one chart to another and try to predict where the curve would lead and how that curve will make me rich.

This is not how disciplined investors are

Well, yeah, I blew it. The PNW stock I intended to sell today "no matter what", I didn't. Again I set cowardly too high a price for the sale to occur... I mean, c'mon, dude! above-average incomes are not made by buying and holding. I have to break this unproductive habit!

ONT fired into stratosphere today in after hours... Hmm. I remember looking at it on Tuesday, but for whatever reason (probably, just being a DiVX customer? or due to that DRM-infested nature of their business?), I did not even shortlist it. But then again, JSDA was tempting too, and it did pass the initial filter ("outperform" pick of few very precise and close-to-the-top Motley Fool players that slid more that 2% one day), and for whatever reason I decided to not to mess with it... And it's about as much down as ONT is up. That's the way it averages for me :) Too safe for my own good?

Another good day for trading

While I haven't sold PNW yet (it's that kind of slow-moving stock), tomorrow is it's last day to show performance or be replaced... No excuses!

I also loaded up on DivX today, it dropped nicely despite good performance of the company, apparently as a knee-jerk reaction on the part of investors who'd given up on it. I too would expect that a not-so-long-ago IPO showing profit would grow significantly with growth in profits... But anyway, if someone grows too impatient, there will be others willing to risk taking their place.

As for tomorrows watchlist, how about MMP, HP or MAD for new additions? Although SANYY I'd much prefer... pity can't trade OTC stocks. CHRT and TM are becoming quite affordable. Can't do short selling, else I'd put some money against CMG. Opportunity to load up on USU slipped away... until next dip. Need to look at IOTN and PLT, there may be a potential for a rebound. Probably this is enough for the limited time I have for this sort of occupation.

Evening non-update

Swamped with my day job, not enough time to produce a coherent piece of text, nor a rambling :)

Day 2 unfolds

Opportunities for bargain-hunting are again present in today's market. Placed an order to buy BOOM at 32.24. Had a problem with my Internet connection, but ATT representative walked me through reset procedure that recovered the service. Meanwhile market trends were already estabilished, so no sour feelings about that disruption. Had to call my broker's customer service about the issue of me not being able to place an order for some LUKOY stock... Appears that funds (that took 1 month to roll over from my other banking account) "have not settled" yet. Hmmm... Don't feel like I'm screwed over, but this is quite close.