BennyEast.Com/Blog The official blog of Kenny West

95.11

So, I made 95 bucks today in an 8 day trade.  95 dollars and 11 cents actually.  I COULD have made more.  It was actually a bad trade.  I thought I had caught a bottom and a top.  I was wrong.

SO, 8 days ago I bought 3M shares when it hit the bottom Bollinger Band.  Today I sold when it hit a top.  I made 95 bucks from the trade.

I'm actually pretty happy with the trade.  I'm REALLY happy actually.  I mean 95 bucks!  That's money I did't have before.  And 95 bucks is nothing to sneeze at.

Anyways, right after I bought the shares, I thought I was at what's called a "bottom".  That's when the shares don't go any lower, at least in the short term, and they reverse and begin to climb in price again.  They kept going down.

I'm not going to lie, it's hard to watch your shares lose value.  In fact, soon after I bought the shares, I was out easily almost 200 bucks.

Eventually they bottomed out and then the price reversed course.  It then went back up to where I was comfortable to sell.  Today I sold at the 95 dollar gain.  I was happy with about 100 bucks.  The thing is, it wasn't a top, they continued to climb more.  If I had hit the top today, I could have made a good 200 bucks.  If I had hit the perfect bottom AND the perfect top...

I could have made about 400 bucks.

Getting in at a perfect bottom and getting out at a perfect top is basically almost impossible.  I mean, yes there are probably traders in NYC on Wall street that hit it almost every time.  But it's hard unless you sit there and trade FULL time.  Every single day.

Even those traders get it wrong sometimes.

My goal isn't to make a perfect trade every time.  My goal is just to make some extra money from a trade here or there.  I have my normal portfolio of stocks that produce the regular dividend income...

Outside of that I've started doing technical trades.  I did a technical trade in the Fall with General Mills shares and made like 60 bucks.

It's just a little side thing to make a few extra bucks.  Now that I'm out of this trade, I'll be doing some more research and analysis to grab up shares in my next trade.  I'm eying up Honeywell, although I have a whole list of stocks that I check up on to look for a good technical trade.

So, even though I didn't get my perfect 400 dollar profit trade, I'm happy with my 95 dollars and 11 cents.  Hey, that's nothing to sneeze at!  And that's money in my pocket to put towards gas, or groceries or bills that I didn't have in my pocket 8 days ago.