So while this phase is ongoing and I am able to maintain a Zen-like centered balance, I might as well keep riding it, because it’s going to end. I remember one day a couple years ago when I held two Biotech stocks in the portfolio. I’d decided to sell one and hold the other. I sold the larger, more well established company (GILD) and held the other (blessedly I can’t remember the name or the symbol).
In after hours Thing 1, which I’d sold, announced some news that would shoot it upward the next morning to a big gain. Thing 2, which I’d held, announced some disastrous clinical trials news and got cut in half. So I went out of my way to sell a winner and hold a massive loser. Okay? We are all stupid and we are all geniuses sometimes. I felt like a compound loser and all I could do was shake my head and move on.
So I absolutely love this simple email I got from Joe, who is the subscriber who I’ve noted is one hell of a chart finder…
“You are absolutely fucking killing everything. Great job.” –Joe F 9.19.17
Err, that and other subscriber feedback available here.
I was actually afraid that when that email came in yesterday my cool down would promptly begin. But no, I kept my humility in the form of remembrance of such bone headed plays as the one noted above and entered today still well balanced.
So okay, the miner thing has been like shooting ducks in a barrel, but only because the charts did what I thought they might do and the goons did what I thought they might do. Had I misread the situation I’d have been pissed, but as with the Biotech follies of yore, I’d have had to just get up, be a man and move on.
But today a really goofy thing happened and I have to believe it is the kind of thing that only happens when you are in a blessed state of some kind. Good karma all around you. I’d been in BBRY for I don’t know how long now. A long-term hold. But the profit got so good in the spring that I had to take it on a partial position while letting the rest ride. I actually rode the rest of it down to a paper loss before the recent bounce put it at a very modest profit, which I took because I was getting squirrely about the market and managing risk.
But the trade’s original intent had been to hold for John Chen’s great turnaround. Anyway, due to the number of things I’ve taken profit on over the last couple of weeks I was looking to rebalance and decided 2 days ago to re-buy BBRY, which we’ve continued to update each week in the NFTRH+ Notes segment. It then went down yesterday, which irked me. But I didn’t sell it. Then? Today…
I seriously have not had time even look to see if this was news driven or if it just was…
[edit] Oh wait, I did read a blurb about a new Ransomware virus causing massive trouble and if that is the cause, I’ll sell BBRY so fast it’ll make your head spin.
[edit] Or was it the fundamentally positive Delphi/Blackberry team-up news? That I’d be good with.
But the point is that something is going on, per Joe’s email. I have had spotty times in the market; some good and some bad. But none like the days of the 2002-2007 and 2008-2011 gold miner bull markets where gains grew on trees.
In real life I have had a lot of challenges over the last couple of years. You’d not hear about them here for the same reasons I don’t report on every hurricane or human interest story out there in the world. That reason is that this is a financial site. After all, who really needs another blogger getting too touchy feely or even reporting the news?
We are all humans and shit happens, but in the markets we’ve got to find and keep a reasonable grasp on perspective and balance, know who/what to tune out and who/what to tune in and most of all, know who we are are as investors, traders or what have you. After all, the decisions are ultimately our own to live with, assuming we are not going the automaton route and simply following some trading coach in monkey see, monkey do fashion. This is all about living, learning, fucking up, having our little triumphs… and then forgetting it all and starting over from a balanced place.
Okay, all posted out for today. Have a good one.
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