Responses to Reader's Comments

I have already responded to some comments from some new followers of my blog but I noticed more comments today so I wanted to address them:

NorthernCountess - I am happy to hear that you can relate to the challenges that working full time presents to managing your own investments. That said, I am also glad to hear that you did great last year, and if anything I talked about can help you then that is great. You are most welcome for the help - I am very happy to hear that my comments and approach are given retail investors something to think about and perhaps even helping other people make some money.

Dan - Since I follow the graphs, I buy and sell stocks pretty much when I am told. I am not a long-term or short-term investor by nature - I stay in stocks as long as they are going up and I get out of them when they are going down. I know that sounds simple, but that is my goal. Like me, it seems that you are trying to buy stocks on upwards momentum (an up-trend), then selling them before they drop back down too much. I think the best advice I can give you (from my trial and error) is to lock in gains when you have them (I use stop losses) and don't get frustrated if a stock sells but goes back up again if you made money on your trade. With my method, I never buy right at the bottom and I never sell right at the top, but I do win with more trades than I lose, and my winners are typically (but not always) bigger than my losers.

Norm - Thanks for the kind words, Norm, and for checking out my blog. Your note is exactly what I hoped I would see - that an investor who is developing their own strategy for what works best for them will consider what I am doing (and consider many other methods as well).