jasenj1 (34.03)

Entering another phase of my trading life.

August 11, 2008 – Comments (1) | RELATED TICKERS: AAPL

I've owned and followed Apple for a long time.  I bought shares when they were down around $20-30 and have sold off chunks of my holding to cover house down payments.  They've been a good stock to me.  Also, I love their products and am an avowed "Machead".  I've owned at least one of their computers since 1984.

However, they are a notoriously volatile stock. $180 this week, $150 the next, back up to $190. Boing, boing, boing.

 But I've always been a "buy-and-hold" investor/trader.  I think I'm ready to change that. I've decided to try to actively take advantage of this bounciness.  I bought a few shares when they dipped to $149 after their last earnings report; they quickly recovered, and are now back above $170.  I've put in a stop-loss order of $172.

We'll see if I can make this work: Watch AAPL news - which I do anyway being a fanboi, buy on the dips, wait for the climb and put in stop-loss orders.  Seems like a pretty simple formula.  Unless, of course, they dip, and dip, and dip.

I expect those of you who have been at this a long time are saying, "Duh!".  But this is my first intentional move into being an "active" trader.

We'll see how it turns out.