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This has been on my most active weeks in a long time, thought I should summarize some of the activities and lessons.

This was a bull-week, if your too stubborn and didn’t cover your positions your account is probably hurting a bit right now but hang in there, you could recover some of it over the next few days when the market chews up the recent up move. (I’m not predicting).

The table on the right is the summary of my trades between April 28 and May 2nd, 2008, boy, I’ve been busy…

Overall a very good week, risk under control (1.3% of capital), good Risk-to-Reward ratio (2.2) and nice Win%. The Win% doesn’t mean much as we all know… big help from the major markets over the last two weeks… you really have to try your skills during downtrends…

Looking at the list of trades below, the P/L% simply reflect my trading method/style, quick in-and-out trades (5-10 days max on average) — I’m comfortable with it. I believe one of the key factors in becoming successful at trading is to feel comfortable with a specific trading style. I’ve tried intraday trading and it was too stressful… I now make a lot more just capitalizing on the small swings… I’m not in a hurry to make a lot of money.

My best trades this week

Weston (WN) - I saw the pop on big volume combined with the previous trust from Mar-April. Entered and exit at the end of yesterday, nice 5.4% in one day - zip-zap.

Canadian Pacific (CP) - probably the best of all, +4.2% just today. On this one, I noticed the push above the 200dma in Feb-Mar, then another push about a week ago… the action on 04/28 was the confirmation and trigger, +3.9% 1 day. I will be back in this stock.

These too are shaping up like good trades to be closed next week:

Gildan Activewear (GIL) - punished with a 30% drop because of production issues. I saw the volume diminishing day-by-day and entered today. I’m up 3.3% so far and it looks good for a pop on Monday. This is not a long term trade, should be closed in 2-3 days max.

Yahoo (YHOO) - I know you are probably laughing now about this whole story but I’m guessing MSFT has no choice but purchase this company (do they have a web strategy?) — and wait until Google offers to strike more partnerships with Y!… mamma mia… so far the trade is going well, 3.99% so far, stock is trading at $29 after hours. Note how it went above the downtrend line…. hummm… we shall see what Monday has in store for us, in any case stops in place…

Commodities

Gold - The bullion has been suffering quite a bit it looks like is being sucked to the $800 level…

Crude Oil - has been strong but not my type of coffee in terms of patterns…. $105 would have been a fantastic level to get in, I didn’t …

Currencies

USDCAD - US dollar ready to jump above the Canadian dollar (I enjoyed my super-loonie times don’t worry) — look at that green bar today, $1.04 could be a target.

EURUSD - Note how my system gave the heads up that the currency was going up on "RED" zone… more downside ahead in my opinion…

That’s all for today folks, good luck to you!

Well, I know, it hurts to see your profits just vanishing this quick but I am personally not worry yet and I don’t think I will only because I have my stops in place, and so far they are intact — am I stressed about the market condition? Well I am not happy but I know how far it can digg into my pockets because of my risk management rules, so far so good.

I know, I sound positive most of the time and I am. Most of my positions, with the exception of one (TD Bank) are still ok and the charts looking good. I know TD will take some time to recover and I was aware of it when I entered it.

I’ve written multiple times in this blog but here it goes again. Days like today are perfect to identify the "trend fighters - past examples are DAR and LH", stocks that can fight the trend — just imagine what they will do when (if) we get a positive wind on our back…

People ask me why I don’t focus too much on shorts and my answer is always the same — I believe money can be made on the short side but I also believe a LOT MORE can be made on the long, IF you choose the right candidates. We all like when things go up and the market just attracts a lot more attention when is going up… look at the example of Gold (now $1,000).

Let me show you some of the stocks in my portfolio (and this is after the market close)…(see commentary in the charts).

Am I holding them? You bet.

Also strong: RIO (CVRD):

Between yesterday and today I’ve made my "temporary" shift from the Gold stocks (G.TO, ABX.TO) into the Financial (TD.TO, BNS.TO) and Insurance (MFC.TO)…

My portfolio is positive and I expect more good things for next week. RIO is doing quite well, up 9.6% since my entry (9 days ago). Here is a summary of my positions:

As you note from the table above my risk% of the account on RIO is slightly above my target (1.4-1.5%)… but I can live with it since I’m up 9.6% in the initial entry.

MFC jumped quite nicely this afternoon, I get a good vibe when the position goes in my direction on the same day (and of course) a very bad when it goes against me…

Overall, good week and I’m quite happy about my decision to switch from Brookfield and Wal-Mart into what I have right now (a lot more Canadian content). I still think Wal-Mart will do well….

Now, let’s get some entertaining here… look at what happened after 2pm this afternoon, big spike on a few of my stocks..

15 minute charts

TD Bank

Manulife

Have a great weekend and good luck to you next week.

Cameco (CCO.TO) is taking a serious beating today along with other commodities stocks.

Every time one of my positions is underwater I decide to look at the fundamentals again for that stock, here’s what it looks like at the moment:
The company numbers are looking healthy from a revenue, sales/share, profit and also EPS. No reason to sell yet.