New strategy update.

Some input from a friend of mine finally gave me the push to get into options spread trading.  The plan is to exercise my optionsXpress virtual trading account for the next 4 months to get the hang of the various spread trading strategies, and get a sample of what I can expect.  If I’m doing good, then I’ll risk 20k in my real-money account.

In parallel, the I’m going to stick with trading off my stock screen/macd/stochastic strategy, which holds up pretty good.  I was up about 10% in January, but lost most of my gains shortly after I peaked.  I’m now up about 2% from the beginning of the year, which is pretty lame.   Most of my losses have come from holding a good trade too long, and trying to get more out of it than it had.  On more than a couple of occassions I’ve been up between 5-15%, then had the stock drop, either suddenly, or take a long dip into negative territory, due to either industry trend change, or oftentimes I’m blindsided by an earnings event.  Both of these can be remedied by reading the news a little better.

Stockin’

Bought a position in PPDI Friday. It’s been on my watch/acquire list for a couple weeks, and it’s been strong(relatively speaking) the past few days, while just about everything else has been on crack, either weaving erractically, or bombing out.

Suncor would be an attractive buy, except that there’s been some unfavorable news on the the Canadian tar sands, and Suncor is big into the tar sands, so I skipped out on them.

Last weeks action:

Sold out my QQQQ position for a minor loss.   Sold at 41.23, bought at 41.92 on 1/27.   I thought it was ready for a move,  but it just  rolled along for awhile, causing me some annoyance along the way.  I sold it to make room for PPDI, which I thought might actually do something.
Bought a position in PPDI for 68.25.  I waited long on my stochastic and MACD signals than usual, partly because I’m feeling conservative at the moment.

I still have a couple of open positions ready for a stock buy, which I kept in cash for the past couple of weeks.  I’m looking to buy into a couple good stocks next week, if an oppurtunity presents itself.