Friday, January 25, 2008

Evaluation of last week's trading calls

Thought about doing this for a while now, so let me just get on to it now:

In my last weekend's "Weekly Trading Calls", I analyzed 14 stocks and made a total of 25 trading calls:

** Winning calls: 8, or 32%, for a total of 70 points (8,6,5,4,7,8,33)
** True Losing calls: 1, or 4%, for a loss of about 1 point;
** Un-materialized calls: 13, or 52%.
** Near-miss calls: 4, or 16%

The near-miss calls are those that were either barely not being hit or barely stopped out. Several of them were heart-breaking ones that would've produced spectacular profits:
1. BIDU:
The call -- "DT-L2 if it spikes towards MA200 (around 241), IDS just below 240, CS below MA200, IT=254, r/r=3:12"
The near miss -- It spiked to as low as 237 on Jan. 23, which would've stopped out the position and miss the subsequent profit of as much as 90 points.
2. ICE:
The call-- "Speculative L3, entry zone=118-126, stop just below 117, IT=MA200, r/r=9:28"
The near miss-- On Jan. 22, it spiked to as low as 126.87, therefore did not hit the order that could produce as high as 38 points.
3. SONS:
The call -- SW-L2 when a capitulation occurs in coming days, scaled entry zone 3.21-3.52, stop just below 3.2, IT=4.5, r/r=0.32:0.98
The near miss-- On Jan. 22, it spiked down to as low as 3, therefore would stop out the position that could've produce over 30% of gain in the follow sessions.

The best winning calls are on RIMM, CRM, and AAPL.

And here is the sad part: I only acted on one winning call (SOLF). While some can be attributed to the near-miss calls (I literally stared at the BIDU and SONS when they were in those ranges), the failure of acting on the winning calls are a bit disturbing. Just read a post by Dr. Brett Steenbarger titled "The Most Important Reason Individual Investors Lose Money", and one of such important reason is "failure to trade reliable, tested ideas", I need to be cured, really!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice calls, yes I'm holding my pot short 137 for 120, check it out double gap up blowoff gimme a break....my best trades were 12 pts aapl, 20 pts fslr on tues, 20 pts fslr on wed after a 36 pt drop. also intc (horrible trading stock) 18.44 to 21.30 yue to fri premkt, incredible week, tue was the eaiest call of a lifetime!

flyingwabbit said...

Razor:
Wow! Talk about razor sharp trading! Got a blog somewhere? If not, please try to post your trades here as close to the real-term as possible.

Thanks and have a good weekend!

Anonymous said...

will do wabbit, boy did I get drunk last night, stressful week...actually my best call was being out of the market at year end when I saw the 200 cross the 50(http://stockcharts.com/charts/gallery.html?$INDU) I knew we were going down, I even parked my entire 401k into money market neutral saving me thousands and keeping my powder dry...next week should be wild with all the data...I will make one call right now...I'm looking to capture aapl around 110 for a st long.

flyingwabbit said...

Razor:
Now that is what I call a well-justified binge drinking :) I like your textbook call on the market turning point. I actually also moved all my retirement account into money market funds in Oct'07 before the topping was firmly confirmed, technically not a very sound call, but the results were good, oh, well. As for AAPL, if it breaches this week's low, a test of 100/110 will be in the card, and I agree on your long call in that range.
Oh, still feeling hangover? Take one-shot of a fine single malt Scotch, nothing more and nothing less, and you will be good to go :)

Anonymous said...

Excellent move wabbit, I can't convince people at work to flip their funds, they just lost 90% of last years gains...just like nobody listened when i was at morgan stanley and told everyone to dump amgn at 82...I just knew aapl would miss guidance but didn't have the balls to short it lol..anyway i think i'm going to open some small kicker bets in my equity funds and wait a little longer for emerging markets.

flyingwabbit said...

Razor:

You worked at MS? as a trader? investment banker? I always wanted to meet someone who worked in the wall street as a market marker or the like, I guess I just want to know what killed me many times over when I just started :) Emerging markets? Not so sure at this stage though.