[theory6453]

I was thinking about posting a question to the group today so am glad this topic came up. Jere - get used to the quick advance. In only a few months I've had several advance pretty quickly on me. I am realizing that when it happens fast (or even slow) I find myself wanting to lock in gains - but you want to ride the winners as far as possible so at what point do you sell half??? I want to have a plan in place ahead of time so if a quick advance occurs, I have a rule to follow that can be followed with emotions set aside. Emotions get in the way when prices are moving significantly.

In the book he says you can sell half after a quick advance and then ride the other half using the stops he taught. I am trying to get a good idea on how to come up with a formula to identify a level where I'd sell half.

Don't have one yet. I think it should depend on how far and how fast, and maybe the price target if one is available? I really don't know. Looking forward to others thoughts....

Great question. Here are a couple things that I look for when deciding to sell / take profits…

First, I’ve learned from experience that it is futile to try to time the market, so I try to ask myself, “Do I feel comfortable locking in a partial profit here or do I legitimately think the stock is going to go higher?” If the answer is yes, then I use the couple indicators listed below to try to get the best price in the range where I am trying to sell. Also, I think it’s important to note that if you do decide to take a profit and the stock still goes up, don’t beat yourself up about it. Sometimes it’s going to continue higher after you sell and you’ll feel like an idiot that you hadn’t stayed in longer; other times it will go lower after you sell and you’ll feel like a genius. Either way, I think you should be happy you locked in a profit and you don’t get down on yourself about it… besides, by taking only partial profits you should have some of your position riding that wave higher.

Second, there are two indicators on Stockcharts.com that I like that can help pinpoint short-term tops and bottoms. The first and most important is Full Stochastics and the second is Stochastics RSI (both used with the default settings). Here is a good example from today using EGLE. Once I’ve identified that I want to buy / sell point on a particular day, I like to set the chart to 2 days with 5 minute intervals. You can read about these indicators at StockCharts ChartSchool at the links below but basically you want to buy when the Full Stochastics indicator breaks above 20 going up and sell when the indicator breaks below 80 going down. So, looking at EGLE, the Full Stochastics broke above 20 at 10am triggering a buy signal at around $6.40 and then continued upwards until around 11am when it hit $6.80 (7% move). In theory, you could then go short on EGLE at $6.80 as the indicator moved back downward, broke under 20, and then broke back above 20 at around 12:30 back down around $6.40 (6% drop). Again, you could buy back long at $6.40 as the indicator moved back above 80 and finally broke back down below 80 at $7.10 (11% move). The Stochastics RSI indicator is less reliable in my opinion but precedes the action of the Full Stochastics, so for example, if you are long and you see this indicator break downwards, get ready to sell and vice versa.

Now, the caveat is that this is all easier looking at this all in hindsight. It can be very difficult to buy and sell long-term based on these signals but if you are looking for short-term entrance/exit points this has served me well in the past.

http://stockcharts.com/school/doku.php?i..._oscillato

http://stockcharts.com/school/doku.php?i...s:stochrsi

Hope this helps… Look forward to reading others methods.

[isatrader]

Stockcharts has a useful section that shows the technical rankings of US stocks and ETFs. But you can sort it to just show ETFs and order by stockcharts SCTR relative strength system with gives a score of 0 to 100 (100 being the strongest and 0 the weakest). Here's the link: http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/sctr.html?&V=E&I=N

So from this the current two strongest ETFs are both Solar ETFs, TAN and KWT, and so I've had a browse through the renewable energy sector quickly here: http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/sector...DWCREE&V=W and have attached four stocks that are in Stages 1 and 2, with heavy volume profiles and good relative performance. Three of them have had very big moves already, but MY, which is a wind power stock, is still forming a large Stage 1 base and so has potential imo, due to being in a strong group that's getting a lot of volume coming into it. So watch for a breakout and close above 2.26 for it to make another attempt at moving into Stage 2A.

[isatrader]

We've talked about AAPL a number of times in the last few months as it developed through Stage 1 and then moved into early Stage 2A. So I thought it was worth highlighting as over the last five weeks it met the first significant resistance and has pulled back to the breakout zone, and this week it showed the first signs of possibly beginning to stabilise, closing right around the breakout level. So the potential investor secondary entry point could be in play, if it continues to stabilise and can close next week higher. So definitely one for the watchlist imo.

[gbarbs]

Same thing happened to me on 9/9!
[/quote]

Well, it is pulling back today towards the continuation breakout level offering a safer entry. The very closest stop would be 9.49 in my opinion which is about 10% and then 8.39 which is closer to 20%. That is a little high for me right now since there are some clouds gathering. I am going to take a small bite, but keeping it small and using the closer stop of 9.49.

   
   

[goodtyneguy]

I got short Barclays (LON:BARC or NYSE:BCS) today just before the London close. It broke down on heavy volume into stage 4A or arguable one may say that happened when it took at the swing low at 277.25 and this a continuation sell. A rally back to the BD level may be on the cards.

       

After I entered I discovered that PRT EOD charts for some reason show a different picture to that of my brokers'?

   

[gbarbs]

   

I got short Barclays (LON:BARC or NYSE:BCS) today just before the London close. It broke down on heavy volume into stage 4A or arguable one may say that happened when it took at the swing low at 277.25 and this a continuation sell. A rally back to the BD level may be on the cards.

After I entered I discovered that PRT EOD charts for some reason show a different picture to that of my brokers'?

here's what i see on my brokerage. i am in the u.s. maybe your brokerage is showing this one. i can't explain why it is different.

   

[goodtyneguy]

here's what i see on my brokerage. i am in the u.s. maybe your brokerage is showing this one. i can't explain why it is different.

My broker and PRT also show BCS the same as yours. One would expect a slight difference between BARC and BCS because of the nuances associated with ADR's but BARC in PRT is different to both of them

I did have PRT'S chart set up adjusted for dividends but it did not make much difference when I took that off. I went over to the trusty marketwatchs' big charts and theirs agreed with my brokers. Considering it's a UK company I'll stick to the LSE chart, it's probably more representative than an ADR. Thanks for the replies anyway guys.

   

[isatrader]

After I entered I discovered that PRT EOD charts for some reason show a different picture to that of my brokers'?

It looks like there was an adjustment made for some reason, as my unadjusted paid for data for ADVFN shows a big gap down on the 18 September, however a news report for the 18th says "Shares of Barclays PLC (BCS) picked up 0.5%". But the unadjusted data shows that it closed down by 7.2% on the previous day. So something has happened which could be due to new shares being issued which I found a news report saying this:

18 September 2013

Admission of Nil Paid Rights

Barclays announces that, pursuant to the rights issue announced on 30 July 2013 (the "Rights Issue"), 3,219,067,868 New Ordinary Shares of 25 pence each will be admitted, nil paid, to listing on the premium listing segment of the Official List of the UK Listing Authority and will be admitted, nil paid, to trading on the London Stock Exchange's main market for listed securities at 8.00 a.m. today.

So that could be it, but attached are the unadjusted charts from ADVFN showing the actual prices that the stock traded at over the last few years. However, if it has been adjusted for the new shares issued, then the ProRealTime adjusted charts still shows it to be in Stage 3B (also attached).