*Note – This is an old trade that I’m posting for tracking purposes. Follow me on Twitter or StockTwits to keep track of my most recent trades, as close to real-time as possible.
Finally emptied my UYG position. This is another example of a trade that I let get away from me for way too long. I stuck with it, and kept averaging down. Things were painful for a while, but I was finally saved in the end by a nice Financial sector recovery. This trade worked out, but it wasn’t a smart way to go about it and I won’t soon forget the pain I was feeling on this one. Hopefully that is a lesson learned for good.
Realized a gain of $1,825.95, for a return of 31.42%
Gains, Sell, UYG
*Note – This is an old trade that I’m posting for tracking purposes. Follow me on Twitter or StockTwits to keep track of my most recent trades, as close to real-time as possible.
Exited my FAS position. I got a little scared and felt like I had to take profits after being down so much on this one. That of course illustrates the problem of letting a bad trade run for so long and not going in with a stop-loss order. Lesson (hopefully) learned.
Realized a gain of $44.92, for a return of 1.93%.
FAS, Gains, Sell
*Note – This is an old trade that I’m posting for tracking purposes. Follow me on Twitter or StockTwits to keep track of my most recent trades, as close to real-time as possible.
Averaging down and adding to my UYG position. I continue to believe the Financials are oversold and the bad news is being overblown. I would buy more, but this is all I could buy with the remaining cash in my account.
Buy, UYG
I sold off my Citigroup speculation this morning at 1.45 per share. After we didn’t see any improvement or positive news over the weekend I decided it was time to let this one go.
I still expect to see a short-cover rally (there are 182 millions shares short according to shortsqueeze.com), but there is probably plenty more downside before that will happen.
Realized a loss of -$134.02, for a return of -15.73%.
C, Sell
My Weekly Realized Returns Report is a way for me to check my progress and see how I’m doing in terms of real dollars. After all, those are the ones that count!
For the week of Feb 23 – 27 I had a realized loss of -$890.85. This was a result of cutting losers that should have been cut long ago. Lesson learned—always set stop loss orders after entering a trade.
This brings my all-time (since January 28, 2009) realized loss to -$1,741.77.
For purposes of this report, realized means the actual net dollars of closed positions, after commissions and fees.
Weekly Report
Bought 200 shares of the FAS (FINANCIAL BULL 3X) at 4.9698 per share.
Buy, FAS
Bought 270 shares of the FAS (FINANCIAL BULL 3X) at 4.90 per share.
Buy, FAS
I sold my full position in the Financial Select Sector ETF (XLF) . I realized this ETF moves almost exactly like the UYG, which I have a much larger position in. I still think we are reaching a bottom in the Financials, so I thought I could benefit more from that rebound by moving this money to the FAS (FINANCIAL BULL 3X) ETF.
Realized a loss of -$392.02, for a return of -20.56%.
Sell, XLF
I bought 500 shares of Citigroup (C) this morning, purely as a speculation of course. I didn’t read the news as being quite so bad as the stock seemed to show with its reaction, but I’ll be keeping a tight stop on this as I certainly can’t say I have much hope in a company like Citigroup.
Buy, C
As I wrote in my previous post (Bought 300 Shares of BAC at 5.60), I set a stop loss order on my BAC shares at 5.32.
Unfortunately, this trade didn’t work out for me and I was stopped out around 2:55, at 5.32 per share (see the red arrow on the chart). This stop saved me from the low of the day (5.11), and also happened to be the price that BAC closed at.
Perhaps my stop was a bit too tight, though I didn’t really think it was at the time I set it.
One problem I have to figure out how to deal with is the small size of my account and the difficulty of making trades that don’t risk more than 2% of my total capital. I’m probably going to have to trade even smaller numbers of shares in order to allow for a little more downside risk. Of course, BAC has been highly volatile so it may not be the right stock for me to learn how to trade anyway. I’ll review some charts tonight and see if I find anything I’m interested in buying tomorrow. If not, I’m happy to let my UYG position ride for a little while longer. I still think that is due for a nice recovery.
Realized a loss of $98.02, for a return of -5.81%.
BAC, Losses, Sell
