6th play — the greed

balance: $2301.76

bought 23,200 shares of GFCI on 1/25/07 @ .043 and sold 23,200 shares on 1/30/07 @.039 for a loss of $116.34 or -11.52%

new balance: $2185.42

total gain after 6 plays (%): 118.54%

three words sum up this play — greed & blown opportunity. to be honest, i am not quite sure what i was thinking (if at all) and compeletely disregarded the entire philosophy of this contest — aim for 10% and if you are sure shoot for more. the bottom line is that i was not sure, took a gamble and loss. so here’s the story:

indicators showed that this one seemed to find a floor and started showing signs of a bounce, so i bought in end of the first day — perhaps a tadbit early looking back. second day started strongly and confirmed the bounce and i was going to sell if it started back down (which it did), but i got swamped at work towards the end of the trading day and couldn’t put the order in. it closed and formed either a shooting star or an inverted hammer — i couldn’t decide which of the two and needed confirmation the next day. so, it was either a bullish close or a bearish close, and i really wasn’t sure which as i thought it was too short for the run to be over, but maybe it was…i got my confirmation that it was an inverted hammer as it made a nice move-up the next day. the greed kicked in around .05 when i gambled that it would make it through and it didn’t. the second time i saw it try to push thru on the day and fail i should have been out, but instead i rode the day out and it had a terrible close. i now knew the run was over and needed to get out immediately the next day. but of course, i wanted to wait and try and sell for no gain…i never got the opportunity to and bailed as soon as it broke the support at .04.

after reflecting on the last two plays, i feel that i need to make some important adjustments to my strategy — or rather stick to the original goal of making 10% and only shoot for more when it is an absolute certainty. i have also come to the conclusion that as soon as you start to feel a play go south in the world of pinks, you should cut your losses and sell and not try to hold out for a small bounce to get you back to even — i seem to consistently fall into that trap and end up losing more money than the money i would have lossed if i had just sold for a couple percent less than even.

hopefully i can turn around this losing streak i am on soon as my weekly goals are quickly filling the gap i established in the beginning — after being several weeks ahead, i am only a couple now.