Back into the Fray!

Although I haven't posted for a while, I have been busy. After exiting my earlier positions, I took off for New Haven to enjoy Parents' weekend with my God-daughter, Mindy. Great experience!

Upon returning, I identified another list of good candidates, and when they tripped their buy number, I moved in on eight of them with about $90K:

ICE - Intercontinental Exchange
BMC - Business software
JCP - J C Penney stores
GRMN - Garmin GPS devices
MS - Morgan Stanley
ORCL - Oracle database software
PCAR - Paccar truck manufacturer
TPX - Tempr-pedic mattresses

Most were selected because they were (1) members of the IBD 100, and (2) rising out of an established, consolidating base. The exception was TPX, which showed a long and strong upward trend. After five trading days, none had triggered stop-loss orders, but none had shown particularly good upward movement, either. The one exception: GRMN, which jumped more than $2 per share in the first four days, but then retraced sharply back $1.50.

Today was a little scary; after 30 minutes the portfolio was down nearly $3K. But the market stabilized by lunchtime. At close of market, I was still holding everything and only down about $800. Good Purchasing Managers data, along with a reasonably good consumer confidence number tomorrow should let the market take a nice run toward 12,100 again, and I should be back in the black.