XL-entLady's Account

[justbizness45]

My FAZ just sold for 22.42, purchased @ $66.60. That is enough to make you superstitious!

FAZ was a huge hit on my account. I learned several lessons from FAZ/FAS in March: never trade with unsettled funds, trade with the trend, don't double down on a losing position.

I'm really having a love/hate relationship with stops. It seems that the levered funds swing so wildly that you can't set a stop that is loose enough so it doesn't knock you out just before it changes direction and still tight enough that it gives you any protection.

I'm starting to decide that I don't have the stomach, the expertise, or the nerves to trade 3x ETFs yet. Until and unless I can feel more comfortable with my entry/exit/stop skills, I'm sticking with unlevered funds. What can I say .... you guys already know I'm a chicklett!

Lady

I'm with you Lady. I did OK with FAZ but it is being cancelled out by UCO. I am holding UCO hoping oil will recover eventually??

[XL-entLady]

My DBB is doing some REALLY strange things this morning. Are Da Boyz playing with it to try to hit as many stops as possible? And if so, why .... ?

Lady

[XL-entLady]

Bought VEU @ $30.12. 5% trailing stop for now.

Lady

[XL-entLady]

I was reading a "trader's mentality" book last night and it said something that really resonated with me. Look at each chart of your positions objectively without paying attention to what chart it is. If you wouldn't buy that [ETF] then you should probably sell it.

So I did that this morning, and I was surprised at how terrible my GTU and SLV charts looked in comparison to the other positions. I bit the bullet and sold my GTU (for a $1+ loss) and I placed a 3% stop on half my very large SLV position.

I've decided to quit writing my own stories for my ETFs and listen to the story the charts are telling me. If a position is hurting the bottom line of my portfolio then it's got to go.

Does that strike a chord with anyone, or do you think I'm going to be sorry?

Lady

[JTH]

I agree with the writer in a "general" sort of way. For me, removing all emotional attachment works much better for a technical trader. It's almost the polar opposite of a value investor who looks for a stock they have a personal stake in like a Wal-Mart customer. The majority of my bad trades involved emotion, attachment, or fond memories, so I try to look at things objectively.

As for Silver, well I see that differently. I find it difficult for me to time SLV. In order to track silver, I've got to know the condition of stocks, bonds, the dollar, supply & demand, ect. I already keep track of so much that between the reading, watching, and analyzing, I just don't have the time to give it the attention I feel it deserves. These bear markets really suck up your time.

[XL-entLady]

You know, I'm getting really tired of having my entire portfolio do well EXCEPT for my precious metals stuff, and still ending up in the red for the day. It's like dying the death of a thousand cuts!

My base metals DBB is just plugging along to the up-side. I mentioned a couple of days ago that there were some wild swings in DBB and I wondered if it meant that Da Boyz were trying to knock out stops. Well I removed my stop and hung on and DBB has done well ever since. I think it's the stimulus and people are thinking about all that bridge building money.

If my precious metals stuff was doing half as well as my base metals position, I'd be way happy. I placed a reasonable stop on half my large SLV position, which had been running without a stop because of the swings. (Forgive me, Show-me, silver is killing me.) And if after-market and pre-market on Monday don't pick up, my GDX and SLW are getting tight stops too.

Apparently the rest of the world doesn't think that things are as dire as I did, because the precious metals stuff has arterial bleeding.

Lady

[XL-entLady]

I just did a post on TSPTalk that reminded me I forgot to post a purchase. I bought XLF on April 2.

I won't post the price I bought it at, because it's too far after the fact. I tried to snip my Scottrade confirmation and paste it here, but my computer still won't let me paste to the message board. I can paste to emails and MS Office files, but not to the MB.

Anyway, for what it's worth, and sorry that I forgot to post it sooner , as soon as I was sure that they had eased mark-to-market, I bought XLF. Not FAS ... I'm in a 12-step recovery program for leveraged funds.

Lady

[etftalk]

No worries Lady. You can post the price... You have us curious now.

[XL-entLady]

I just did a post on TSPTalk that reminded me I forgot to post a purchase. I bought XLF on April 2.

I won't post the price I bought it at, because it's too far after the fact. I tried to snip my Scottrade confirmation and paste it here, but my computer still won't let me paste to the message board. I can paste to emails and MS Office files, but not to the MB.

Anyway, for what it's worth, and sorry that I forgot to post it sooner, as soon as I was sure that they had eased mark-to-market, I bought XLF. Not FAS ... I'm in a 12-step recovery program for leveraged funds.

Lady

No worries Lady. You can post the price... You have us curious now.

Okay, I bought XLF on 4/2/09 @ $9.38. Almost the high of the day. But it's done well since then. I'm keeping an eagle eye on it. I'm not going to let it damage my entire account like FAZ did.

Lady

[XL-entLady]

Precious metals are not gaining ground in this pull-back. I lightened up my precious metals holdings again by selling half my position in SLV. Still holding GDX and PTM in addition to my now smaller SLV, but I could lose patience with my GDX sometime in the next few days.

And I'm keeping a VERY close eye on my XLF.

If this just ends up being a correcting pullback, I'm going to look closely at the Q's and VNQ toward the end of this week. I decided against a small cap value fund - - I'm going to increase my TSP S fund instead, if this is just a correction. I'm going to look at candlesticks for a couple of days before I decide.

FWIW,
Lady