Trailing Stop Triggered: So long, Visa

Symbol	Action	Qty	Acct Type	Price	Total
V	SOLD	35	CASH	$61.75	$2,154.23

Visa, I hardly knew ye.

After having bought Visa at its post-IPO glowing peak for 35 @ $64.95 / $2,280.95, it sold today after triggering a 3% trailing stop at $2,154.23, net loss of $126.72. It never pushed past the resistance I regrettably bought at, and while I still expect it to surge into the $100s in the coming months, perhaps after an earnings statement and on strong transactional growth, it wasn't doing it anytime soon.

This was an issue of liquidity—I had wanted in at $55 and got in at $64.95 instead.

This actually represents the first position I've exited at a loss and it's very clearly not going to be the last. It's also a good lesson in momentum and resistance. I had figured it would want to push clear the level I bought it at, but it only spiked an extra few cents and never hit that level again.

Alas. Let's see what happens with TSRA and what I can buy with the liquidity I have from the V and BRK sales. I've got $5,550 available for trading. Time to make some use of it.

Exits all around... (RHT, BRK/B, V)

Red Hat, Inc. (RHT)
As I feared, Red Hat is a bit too low in volume to really push past a 5% gain. I bought pretty much at market open, and pretty much at its peak thus far of $18.58 and worse still, after it had made its biggest move in after hours yesterday. It's showing strong resistance at $18.80-ish, and I don't think we'll see it move past that. Trailing stop set: 57 @ 1% / $18.4734.

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/B)
Berkshire is having it's daily spike up, as high as $4,450 when I started writing this. It's at $4,432, with me having bought in at $4,374.50. Trailing stop set: 1 @ 1% / $4,393.55, guaranteed profit of all of $20. (After commission.) Hopefully we can squeeze out just a little more, but I want some big liquidity back. I'll probably keep my eye on it and watch for it to fall to $4,200 to buy in again. It's moving up almost no matter what; buying on the dip of the range is a good call.

Visa (V)
This stock just won't settle down. Everyone expects it to perform exactly like Mastercard—to take off and break out in the next couple of months and skyrocket into the $200s. It took MA four months to move and MA had a lackluster first few months at best, opening at $44 like V, and only hitting the $50s until month 4, when it broke out in a big way:


In the meantime, nothing's moving on it and today, it's taking a bit of a hit, trending downwards and unable to gain any ground on its rallies. We'll see where it lands. Trailing stop set: 35 @ 5% / $60.268

Visa stings, BSC turns out to be a good call...

AAPL	139.53	+6.26	(4.70%)
GOOG	460.56	+27.01	(6.23%)
BRK.B	4,341.00	-6.88	(-0.16%)
V	59.73	-4.62	(-7.18%)
BSC	11.28	+5.32	(89.24%)
Value:	7,031.64	-135.31	(-1.92%)

Some confusing numbers up above, due to Google knowing I was only holding BSC for the day and neglecting to report any of my profits on it because it's technically no longer in my portfolio. At the very least, you can see that the market had a strong day in general with Google leading the charge up $27.01. Apple was healthy as well at $6.26/4.70%. But Visa met with some nasty downtrending with someone apparently selling heavy into the rallies that would've otherwise drove it up.

As a result, I've gotten dangerous close to my 15% trailing stop. And as a result of that, I think I'm going to switch it to just a flat stop at $57 to buy myself some cushion (about 50 cents worth) tomorrow. I'm predicting it bounces heavy tomorrow—a lot of people want this for a long term buy and were waiting for it to drop below $60 before buying in. Now will be their time and hopefully I can exit the position around $70 or $75, or at least establish a nice and healthy trailing stop there.

I won't let it drop below $55 at the VERY least though, and I'm going to set the stop loss at $57 right now. It'll suck to lose just about as much as I made today on BSC, but that's how things work. (It's more or less just frustrating because I think a bounceback is imminent, but waiting and wishing doesn't make it so.) (Okay, I lied. $56.75.)

Symbol	Action	Qty		Order Type	Order Price	Duration
V	SELL	35		STOP	$56.75	GTC

Fun with trailing stops...

Open Orders

Status Symbol Action Qty Order Type Order Price Duration Order Time Session OPEN V SELL 35 TRAILING STOP 15% $54.6975 GTC 3/21/2008 4:25 PM Regular

Today's a holiday so nothing going. I've placed a trailing stop (more on them here) order for 15% on my Visa holding, since I want it to be a medium-term play and while the market settles, it could have some volatility yet. If it drops 15% or more at any point, a stop will trigger a market order to sell all 35 shares I own.

What makes it a trailing stop is that the "15%" mark is relative to the high point for the stock. As the stock's price increases, the stop "trails" or moves with it, providing a moving safety net that allows you to lock in profits. The order price is listed at $54.6975 because that represents the current 15% stop loss level. And if it triggers that, it'll suck and I'll lose some money, but if it collapses back to $50 or some such, I'd lose quite a bit more. I can always rebuy on the dip. Or, perhaps not buy on the peak in the first place. :-)

The GTC indicates that it's "Good Til Canceled" which is pretty self-explanatory. We'll revisit this order next week and see what happens with good ol' V.

BRK Bounceback...

AAPL	133.27	+3.60	(2.78%)
GOOG	433.55	+1.55	(0.36%)
BRK.B	4,347.88	+82.63	(1.94%)
Value:	4,914.70	87.78	(1.79%)

Berkshire was bouncing around a bunch today. Of course, looking at it every day is purely an academic exercise since I'm not touching it. Could've averaged in over the past two days when it was in the $4,200 range, but that only works for long-term positions and I'm not looking to tie up another $4k.

*Someone* thought well to buy in on a bit of a low point for [BRK], pushing it up $82 in a series of big buys towards the end of the day in rapid fire.

My buy of [V] (which isn't showing up above because I paste that from Google Finance who isn't yet allowing you to add [V] as a portfolio symbol yet) of 35 @ 64.97 smarted just a touch by close @ 64.24; it hit its resistance right about there but damn if I didn't think it'd push past the 15% gains mark.

Holding Visa short-term...

Well, I went ahead and bought 35 shares of Visa [V], regrettably @ 64.97 (as it's kicking back down a little bit, nice.) I tried to place a market order last night for open @ 58.33, but I didn't have my funds settled yet and couldn't. I should've bought earlier today, but instead kept waivering and finally decided to pull the trigger at the top of the curve. Stupid, but I think it's going to bounce into the 70s next week.

If it drops below 59, I'll sell. If it hits 75, I'll sell.

Considering Visa...

AAPL	129.67	-3.15	(-2.37%)
GOOG	432.00	-7.16	(-1.63%)
BRK.B	4,265.25	-40.25	(-0.93%)
Value:	4,826.92	-50.56	(-1.05%)

Correcting from the high yesterday, as expected.

I'm considering pushing a medium play into Visa [V]. They just had their IPO two days ago and they're hovering in the $56 range, having opened at $44. I'm thinking in the short term, they could range up to near $70-$75, but that'd mostly be on hype. I've heard some back-of-napkin value calculations putting their actual value at $40 and that's a big hype bubble to hope for. Either way, let's check back in in a week. I'm predicting mid-60s by this time next week.

(Baseless guess: small gain tomorrow, minor correction to follow, more growth back the next week.)

Liquidity limitations and considering jumping to ThinkOrSwim as my brokerage are all that's keeping me from buying. Let's see how I'd do in imaginary world, assuming I could buy 40 shares at open, shall we?