I'm back from Flaaarida with the sad news that my skin has lost it's ability to weather the semi tropical sun under which I grew up. I literally was so hot my eyelashes were sweating. But my daughter got to play in the Gulf for the first time (no oil near where we were) and we had great bday party for my little sis. Between my last post and July 31st, I haven't closed any positions in my IRA. In my taxable account, I've closed the following positions/done the following Trades:
MELA (-2030)
I sold MELA on the panel delay news, thinking it'd dump and trade sideways near 6 for a while. I was so wrong. I could've held this an extra day and gotten out unscathed or just held my position and gotten back to black. The irony is I'll buy it back before November anyway.
JSDA (+5748)
I traded about 5k shares of this from early June til July 22nd but held a core position of 6050 shares throughout. I did a total of 28 trades. I shorted shares between 1.76-2.20 with an avg SP of 1.99 for that core block. My avg SP was 1.99. I held onto 6050 shares until July 22nd and covered at 1.03. I made $5,808 on that block of shares. I added profits last month to my running total from other JSDA trades. This was the profit from my core position only. I'm not posting screen shots of when I shorted because there are 14 separate short orders throughout the 6 week period when I traded this. JSDA basically showed me that patience is profitable.
MNTA (-374.68)
This was not worth the energy and emotion. I shorted 2k shares Friday from my phone at lunch between client meetings and managed to cover half but held the other half into a wild upswing last week. I held steady and got out at a loss with the other half of the shares, bringing me to nearly b/e on the trade. It was a reminder that I have no business doing ST trades when I'm not near a computer. It was not a fun ticker to watch and I thought I would cry or throw up until it started to come back down.
Taxable Accounts July MTD +/-: $5,708
This was not worth the energy and emotion. I shorted 2k shares Friday from my phone at lunch between client meetings and managed to cover half but held the other half into a wild upswing last week. I held steady and got out at a loss with the other half of the shares, bringing me to nearly b/e on the trade. It was a reminder that I have no business doing ST trades when I'm not near a computer. It was not a fun ticker to watch and I thought I would cry or throw up until it started to come back down.
Taxable Accounts July MTD +/-: $5,708
IRA Account July MTD +/-: 2,462.20
My current taxable account option positions are about $400 worth of ALXA and BIOD. My current taxable account stock positions (w/average SP):
ALXA (2.84)
BIOD (3.63)
CPIX (6.22)
VVUS (5.34)
AVNR (3.37)
JAZZ (8.76)
IRA stock positions (w/ average SP):
JAZZ (8.72)
BIOD (3.94)
VVUS (5.30).
I generally DO NOT hold the same equities in both accounts. For the next 6-8 weeks (we close on the sale of our place on 8/27, then I'm travelling for 3 weeks), I am on autopilot to some extent and decided to override this internal rule about duplication for the sake of simplicity. I have stoplosses and sale orders in place, so I'm willing to sit with the risk. My IRA tends to hold 3-6 positions at any given time and a large position in cash. I have buy orders for MNKD, MELA, OREX and ARNA in my IRA account. I have traded my IRA strictly according to catalyst dates (be it EPS or bio dates) the last two years, and I tend to have a lot of patience with my IRA positions. As a result, it's done a lot better than my taxable account this year, because I don't scratch my gambler's itch and trade it as frequently as I do my taxable account.
Given how busy everything is with the move/taking a hiatus from my career/third trimester, my plan is to hang tight in each of my 6-12 week holds and rotate out either when my sell prices hit or catalyst dates hit. Then I'll rotate into new positions and do the same. The only ST trades I plan to execute will be based on preplanned expectations for large price spikes for stocks on my watch list (VVUS on clinical trial news, QCOR on FDA approval news, ARNA on panel news, etc...) I have a calendar that corresponds with my watch list (both of which are on my computer and phone) and unless the stock is on my list and behaves according to my trading hypothesis, I likely won't be trading it. Most of my work will be done via my Iphone until I'm more stationary at the end of September, so I just won't have the technology to keep up with live trading prices for other trades.
I will try to update all closed positions and the corresponding gains/losses every week but no promises til I'm standing still again. I'll also try to keep tweeting trades as I do them. If you know of a good blogging app for Iphone, I'd love to hear about it;)
Happy trading!
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