Mar 3
Starting next week I am not going to comment so much about my own holdings, you can always read about them in My Track Record. I will instead try to stick to one or two topics and include some relevant links. The focus will be on short-term trading.
*******
This morning I woke up with the feeling I should sell everything. Too bad I didn't have this feeling yesterday before Intel decided to roil the markets with it's warning. Sometimes you just need a fresh start. My losers have been steadily deteriorating while a few winners have kept the bottom line from collapsing. I've had six or seven stocks in my porfolio lately and that is not a huge number but I have failed to trade any of them well. I've let winners carry the losers. Then the winners falter and I'm left with nothing but misery.

Intel showed a nice bounce after opening down so much. I got out at 20.25 after the stock traded as low as 19.86. Next in the crosshairs - EBAY and RMBS

Sold EBAY and NBR for small profits. I'm hoping to get out of RMBS and ANN next week and then move to a new broker. I've been a loyal customer of Muriel Siebert for many years and they are excellent in every way. But 14.95 a trade for all the trades I do is just too much. My new broker is 1 dollar for 100 shares, 5$ for 500 shares and .006 / share after that. You do have to trade actively to get those rates. They seem to have a good realtime platform for scanning the market. Seems like an easier way to do what I've been trying to do with Yahoo realtime.

Mar 2
I couldn't find any Indian stocks to trade yesterday. That's not surprising since the Indian market rose 40% last year. I was hoping that some volume might flow into these stocks due to Bush's visit. Bush has a 90% approval rating in India and a 50% approval here at home (my home).
*******
Are women better traders than men? Karen Cramer is portrayed as an excellent trader in Jim Cramer's book, "Confessions of a Street Addict". Dana Galante is profiled in Jack D. Schwager's "Stock Market Wizards". Now my wife has decided to test her ideas with some real money. She starts off her trading career with a short sale! Here is the analysis of the trade so far:

First we compared a number of retail stocks that she is familier with. Among those considered, The Gap, Payless shoes, Target, Ann Taylor, Kmart, and Stein Mart. ANN seemed like the most promising trade. On the plus side (as a short), high P/E, declining stock price today after retail sales numbers were released today, and my wife's feeling that the prices are too high in the store and the sales people are too pushy. On the negative side - the high P/E indicates that there are a great many investors that believe in the stock, the stock is in a steady uptrend, the company has no debt.

My wife (the new trading goddess) let me make the actual trade, trusting my judgement as to when to pull the trigger. I shorted into mid-morning rally. The stock continued it's rally but stalled shortly after 11am. From here, the trade is in her hands. May the trading gods smile upon her!
*******
Nabors NBR has never been a good trading vehicle for me. That stock reverses position quicker than John Kerry! I was up 3% today and should have placed my "break even" stop but I didn't realize I had been up that much and the stop was never placed. Then the stock reversed and went straight down into loss territory. I almost sold but with oil being up I thought there was a chance for a reversal. To my amazment, the stock recovered nicely.

Mar 1
I've got plenty of trading ideas to start off the month.
1. Daytrading biotechs. These little babies are mostly under 10$ and very volitile. Just trade well.
2. Short stocks. There are still a few highflyers to sell before everything comes crashing down.
3. India. Bush's trip should be good for a little action in these stocks. Now which one to buy?
SIFY, REDF, PTI, SAY, IBN, HDB, HDB, INFY, MTE, PTI, RDY, TTM, VSL, WIT
4. Read up. There are great companies and great stocks that I might be able to hold for more than 20 minutes if I can just get caught up on my reading. Unfortunately, I'm having too much fun reading my new copy of "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator". I loaned out my first copy years ago and it's a great read the 2nd time around - now that I've got some real trading experience.
5. Energy.The action isn't over in this volitile sector.

In spite of the healthy market rally today, I could not find anything to buy, sell, or trade. The QQQQ would have been ok but I have no faith in a follow-through rally tomorrow. The one Indian stock I considered was SAY but there wasn't the volume I wanted to see. RMBS is turning into the worst trade of the year. The litigation risk is high and there's a real chance I'll be killed on this stock if I don't get out soon. I still think RMBS will collapse - I hope I'm still in it when it does.

Feb 28
Holy cow, what a day. The market's volitility is low (so they say) but my stocks were all over the place today. My goal for March - to trade well and not be greedy. The most valuable thing to know when trading stocks: Know yourself.

My stats for Feb - not very good I'm afraid. I made more than my usual number of mistakes. 11 trades completed and only 5 were profitable. The average trade was up 0.2% and the account gained 0.3%.
*******
Stock update: Bought Nabors (NBR) as a speculation on rebounding energy. INTC is up in a down market - hold. All the shorts are behaving as predicted. No serious profit yet. Stopped out on GKIS.
*******
Learning to trust knowledge and act upon it and not give in to the seduction of greed is a big problem for me. I had a good plan with yesterday's trade on GNTA. I didn't stick to my plan and ended up with a very small profit. As the stock rises, brain activity is high. As the stock declines, brain freezes.
*******
I am not xenophobic. Maybe it's because so many of the people I come into contact with are 1st generation Americans. I teach piano to 34 kids and one adult. Here's the breakdown:
10 "Americans"
5 Chinese
3 Iranians
2 Greeks
2 Russians
2 Pakastanians
2 Japanese
2 Canadians
1 each: Turkey, Indian, Korean, Israli, Swiss, and 2 with parents from 2 different countries.
As far as I can tell, all of these kids and their families love America and embrace our diverse culture.

I hope they are never subjected to the kind of hatred espoused by entertainers like Michael Savage. The man is truly hateful, but somehow he appeals, in a very effective manner, to a large number of "angry white men."

In the past, these kind of feelings would have had me running to short satellite radio or something equally foolish. Now I just short what I feel are mispriced stocks, even if I happen to like the company and it's products.
*******
I day traded GNTA for a small profit yesterday, Well maybe. It's still in my portfolio and I'm hoping for a little pop at the opening to get me out with a few extra bucks. This kind of nonsense has got me into trouble the whole month. One advantage to trading small stocks - Cramer won't be talking about them.

Feb 27
Some of the best investment books have dumb titles. I wouldn't call Rule the Freakin' Markets by Michael Parness the best book I've ever read on investment, but it's to the point. It doesn't cover many aspects of investing but it deals with the technique of trading quite well and is worth the hour or so it takes to read it.
*******
Only a miracle will save my track record for February but I'll be trying to hit a few singles in the closing days, not swinging for the fences. I departed from my usual trading style this month and the results were poor.
*******
Seems like everyone thinks Intel is headed lower. (I don't) Since my profit has now totally evaporated, let me restate for my own edification, my latest trading rule.

Place a stop order at the break even point once a 2.5% gain has been achieved.