TSRA & PLXS Sold, $74.01 profit...

Both TSRA and PLXS triggered their stops today:

Symbol	Action	Qty	Acct Type	Price	Total
TSRA	SOLD	100	MARGIN	$22.405	$2,233.48
PLXS	SOLD	100	MARGIN	$26.0901	$2,601.99

Seeing as I originally bought PLXS for $2,601.99 total, and TSRA for $2,159.47, that leaves me with a net profit of $74.01 on both.

I am now completely exited from all positions, the first time that's been the case since I've started.

TSRA has been all over the place. Early on, it was trading in a range from $22.42 to $22.60 or so. My trailing stop was set for $22.41 and I watched it come very, very close several times before finally triggering. A bit later, the stock shot up to $22.95, but it's come back down to $22.37-ish. I have a standing limit order to buy back 100 @ $21.55, but it's doubtful it'll drop far enough to hit that today, since it's up on the day and opened at $22.

PLXS ended up costing me all of $5, but it's hovering right around the same point so I'm not too upset.

I'm beginning to formulate strategies for my upcoming trip. I'll be gone for over two weeks and won't have much access to internet. I'm definitely considering just buying two solid shares of BRK/B, especially if it keeps tanking like it has. It's down to $4,360 after having hit $4,466 when I sold it.

Google also looks poised for a breakout. It's hitting $480 right now, but it's been swinging back down as well. We'll see what happens when earnings come up soon.

Safety Stops for TSRA & PLXS...

I've placed two sell orders for TSRA and PLXS.

I bought into TSRA 100 @ 21.455 and it's trading at 21.99 / 22.05 (A.E.). I think it has a lot of potential upward momentum, but if it dips back down, I can use that to my advantage. I've set a trailing stop of 0.26 pts so its floor is 21.73. If it dips below that, I'll reevaluate, but probably buy back in a little lower, instead of taking the hit for the dip. I think we'll hold steady in the upper 21s, but any significant dip will trigger the stop.

Again, this is a stock I'm holding for news on the Amkor arbitration. I think the other pending lawsuits are too far off to make this a short term play, so we'll see what happens, though I'm debating switching it from a trailing stop to a regular stop...

PLXS didn't bounce like I had hoped; the downgrade to "neutral" really hurt it. They finished some proper financing as expected late Friday, but I'm not sure it'll have much of an impact. Either way, it closed at 26.01 / 25.91 (A.E.) after I bought 100 @ 26.00, so I've set a T/S of 0.31 points, but I'm not sure I'll want to see that trigger without a nice spike. I'm looking to exit this position pretty quickly one way or another and I'll probably take a slight loss on it.

Portfolio Recap

I started this blog and my "trading career" three weeks ago today.

Let's look at how I've fared:

As of right now, I'm up almost exactly $300. On exactly $7,500 invested. (Bear Stearns required an additional $1,000 that was put into play for liquidity purposes; that original $1,000 was withdrawn the next day.) So we're looking at a 4% return in under a month.

Not bad, but it can definitely be better. My PLXS play didn't bounce upward enough; buying in at $26 was a bad call; not enough volatility/upward motion to cause it to gap at open and it hovered in the $25.50s through most of the day before closing at $26.01. Gain before commissions: $1. We'll see what happens to it on Monday, but I'll close my position on that sooner or later; was just making an anticipated correction play.

Tessera is getting more and more interesting. The Ankor hearing should be wrapping up with results coming this week. It's performed shockingly well all week, though it slipped some 41 cents today. (And at 100 shares, I do feel it.) I'm not holding it for those tiny gains and losses. I'm hoping some big news pushes it up to the $30-$40 range. Positive Ankor news would be best, but MOTO settlement would be the holy grail. Unfortunately, Ankor is short-term. MOTO definitely isn't, it seems.

We'll see what happens next week. My holdings are worth exactly $4,800.00 right now, which leaves me with $2,700 in liquid assets.

Plexus takes a hit, looking for a bounce back....

Plexus Corp (PLXS) took a nasty hit yesterday on a single analyst's downgrade comments that don't reflect the company's broader holdings and capabilities. They ended up down $3.74 / 12.73% to $25.64. I've bought 100 @ $26 (which may be a bit too much, but we'll see if I should've just let market take over for regular session—this is how I learn lessons.)

I'll put a regular market session market bid for 100 shares and see where it closes. This one could easily bounce down a bit, but I'm guessing it oversold yesterday.

New strategy, but of course we'll see where we end up.