Play by Play Action

The Play by Play Action is where I disclose trades I have made during this terrible market we our experiencing as of late. It is a mental note to myself and all the world of my skill or lack there of in the game I like the call the market matrix, which I define as all the variables that go into making a intelligent decisions in investing As my debut I discuss one trade I made on 2/15/2008 when I bought the ETF Ultra Short Basic Materials at 41.80. The reason was based primarily on technical analysis indicators not fundamental analysis and I totally missed the boat on this trade with it plummeting almost 21% at one point. Now alot of pundits would say never hold on to a stock or ETF for that matter if it drops more than 8% but I think this rule needs to be put into context because to blindly sell off all positions just because it falls 8% is a bit too systematic. It is a perfect thing to do if you don't know anything about whats going on with the company and you are simply using filters or some investment firm to make your decisions for you because you want have a feel for the company and know its elasticities towards certain events like when big economic data numbers comes out or analysts upgrades and down grades in the industry, and so forth. I think there are few things you can quantify with rules like that when you know what your doing. So, needless to say I hold it and it turns around just this week jumping up 7% on 3/10/2008 and I just wanted to sell and get out of the thing but I decided to just put in a limit to sell order at different prices adjusting constantly upward as the ETF went up and up because I didn't want to put a market order and miss out on any upside. As of to day, the ETF opened significantly lower than 3/10/2008 close and my limit to sell order did not get filled but I am happy with my ability to stay the course, however will I look at this post a few months from now and feel the same way well thats what the market matrix is all about ......This is play by play action where I disclose the good the bad and the ugly of trading the street. Stay tune and feel free to post your good, bad, and ugly....ciao