So I have been playing some technical analysis and momentum games lately. Today is the first day in a while that my 4 current picks are down. Not by much but down. At one point not too long ago my "play" or active portfolio looked like this GE XRX TYC and XOM. All are up over 30% from what I held and of course I sold them for about 30% below where they are now. That was based on not having any cash in the account because it was all tied up in stocks and when a new "hot" stock came around I would have to sell quickly to free up the necessary cash to buy the new stock. Of course all this buying and selling had commissions attached as well. Had I did a little research (I had on Tyc which just got through it's own scandal and the stock had leveled off and GE of course is GE, Jack Welch is one of my favorite CEOs to research) and XOM was strong but this was before the gas price surge. If I had been smarter then I would have moved them into my Long portfolio and added cash to my active side. This would have brought me 30% return over the last year or so not including any dividends.
So what is the lesson learned? Don't be greedy, pay attention to the balance sheet and listen to the consumer and the company. When you find one that has potential leave it alone for a while and see what it can do.
My picks for potential today are QCOM, NOK, PTR, possibly RIMM (in other words more research is needed, although I had planned to buy at the split I did not) and EMC. CROX might be the next DECK, I've been saying this while watching it rise without buying, yes, the same as DECK back at 18.
My lesson learned is to pay attention to fundamentals and buy the stocks that look like the ones I should have bought and hold them!
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