...And What a Week it Was!

Maybe I should have called this post Mr. Toad's Wild Ride for all the ups and downs, twists and turns.


MONDAY :

BIIB - I had noticed some strange activity on the stock price early in the day Friday where the bid was higher than the offer for about 20 minutes. And lots of volume so I figured I'd get me some too. At the end of Friday I already had a decent profit. And then they annouced a possible sale of the company after the market closed. On Monday morning I was doing the money dance when this happened:

TUESDAY:

Woke up to see my favorite stock TRAK was trading DOWN $3.50 in pre-market. This is a stock that had not had a down day in over 3 weeks and never traded pre-market. Some minor news was sending this into freefall and threatening to eat all my profits. I watched in horror as it continued to sell off in premarket, down over $6 before the opening. I realized I had a stop in and not only would I get stopped out but it would be at the worst possible price. I quickly cancelled the stop figuring it would rebound somewhat from what was obviously overkill and I could exit more gracefully. It opened and continued to fall, down about $8.50 before it ran into its 50-day MA and turned around. It rallied all the way back to -3.00 before backing off again, at which point I exited. Take a look at what it has done since then. Unbelievable!

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY:

Spent most of the time hunting some new plays since I had been mostly in cash the week before when I was unable to trade. Loaded up on some good calls and puts which performed perfectly on Thursday, giving me my best single day in the market (except for the BIIB gift). A few trades had reached their targets or were close enough to pay myself and take some profits off the table. By Thursday afternoon I realized that I was really heavily bullish in one of my accounts, and couldn't find any bearish stock plays that weren't already over-extended. I quickly jumped into some IWM puts at the end of the day for 'insurance'.

FRIDAY:

Ugh! Thank goodness for my 'insurance'! As it is, it wasn't enough but it certainly cut the losses in that account by at least 60%. I was stopped out of almost every bullish position. I normally hate being stopped out but as I watched the market continue to fall, I was happy to be out with minor bruises.

The weird thing about Friday, at least the first half of the day, is that my put plays were actually UP on the day. One stock in particular, MDC, was particularly vexing. The stock, which was at the bottom of its channel anyway, was up almost a dollar in the face of the -300 point Dow until about the last half hour of the day. Earnings are coming up and I guess somebody must think they will be good. I exited with a nice profit:

At the end of the day, and the end of the week, it turned out to be the best week I've ever had trading.