Stopped out: TIM & IMP

[Victor]

Hi,

I got  stopped out of TIM and IMP today.  Also added JAG, mostly due to its strength on the day.

Portfolio since inception: 11%
Annualized: 25%

Current Cash: 61%

Hope everyone is holding up well through the recent turmoil.  Not an easy time.

Cheers,

Victor

[denhams]

Doesn't your getting stopped out go against the rules proposed by this website?
Should we not wait for a sell signal, and play by the rules (discipline as prescribed by the portfolio strategy)? Why would you choose to get stopped out, risking a potential turnaround?
No guarantee of a turnaround, of course, but if the stock is a momentum play which is showing good signs of volatility (necessary to make big bucks), why disembark?
Perhaps your position size is greater than you can handle? Perhaps it would be more prudent to decrease the risk you can handle in order that you can hang in there for any potential long hauls?
I don't know, of course. What think you?
Sincerely, I wonder what your thoughts are.
Kindly,
S.

[mrrammstein]

i personally just buy more - nothing like great value!! 

[bryanmcn]

Although against the SSP strategy, I agree with Victors tactics. Stopping out is setting limits to your losses. Buying more as the stock drops is a gamblers mentality. Will you buy more if TIM drops to $10? To $8? To $5? Set your blink point and sleep well. You can always buy back in if it turns around. 

[Victor]

Hi Bryan,

You're right, I'm not following the website to the letter.  There are two aspects I can't follow:
1) Allocation: For my long-term financial health I can't risk so much in one or two stocks.  As the system has held onto TIM for some, through some awesome gains, its percentage of the portfolio has kept growing.  I think we've discussed this before, so I'll leave this one at that.
2) Stops: There are times when these stocks just keep dropping intra-week and I couldn't see waiting until the weekend if the poor performance would end up having it tossed from the system.  So I've used large stops 20%-30%.  I've also raised them from time to time as open profits built up in a position.

Given the wide stops my positions have been relatively small in an effort to keep total risk to a reasonable amount.  However, the amount I commit to each position is affected by the porfolio's performance.  At this point I'm up 11% and back to square one risk-wise.  If the current positions start adding value I'll increase my size.

It's true that someone who follows the website may outperform my portfolio's numbers, even on a risk adjusted basis.  I've just set it up to a point where I'm comfortable with risk.

As for getting back in, yes I have done that.  In fact, I was out of TIM earlier, picked it up again.  I would have posted a small gain on this jump back in had it not been for slippage on the stop.

Hopefully things turn around for the portfolios.

Cheers,

Victor

[garilou]

I never owned TIM or IMP.
But when I received the "sell" recommendation for IMP, I waited a few days, I shorted IMP twice, but although I made some gains, it was not "fun", to little volume, too slow. My mistake: did not check the average daily volume.