Taking More Risk

I thought quite a bit about my trading this weekend. I have been far too risk adverse, and missing great opportunities. This summer, I was in some stocks early that made huge moves. Stocks like TNH and BIDU (By the way, how about BIDU today? Unreal how it just keeps going up). I wasn’t able to capitalize on these moves, because I took profits way too early. I don't like to give money back to the market. It’s nice to take profits and end the day in cash. But the real money is made in holding. That is how Nicolas Darvas made his millions. Besides, I don’t have the time to devote to day trading and grinding it out, although I wish I did. If I want to build real wealth, I need to risk more and hold longer. That doesn’t mean being careless, but risking enough to make the wins substantial, and holding to catch a large part of a move.

I knew the market was overbought, and due for a rest, but I decided to look for swing opportunities today, and use wider stops than normal. I found three stocks that I liked this morning. These are the positions I opened:

BCSI, CTRP and GRMN.

You're probably thinking, "Isn't GRMN on your do not trade list?" True. But I thought I would give it one more shot, this time with a wider stop, after Dan Zanger called it a "must own" in his Sunday night newsletter. BSCI was also a Zanger pick, and started the day strongly, but sold off. CTRP I saw on my nightly scan. It too sold off in the afternoon.

I'm still in RIG. I was prepared for today’s action in RIG, as oil was way overbought. I think long-term, it could be a good position.

There isn’t much news expected this week, but I am counting on an end of the month rally to bring these higher.