I was planning to take a little time last Friday to start buying into the market.  I was lucky to be in cash as it went down but at this point it has gone down a while, market sentiment is terrible and everybody wants to stay defensive.  The new “end of the world news” from Europe isn’t all that new.  So I figured there may be a turn soon and wanted to start to buy in.  Problem…  This is a sideline and my day job didn’t allow it.   Neither did my other sideline as a volunteer firefighter.

During breakfast with one of my friends and a Chief officer in the fire company, the pagers went off for a house fire.  It was a house fire alright.  You could see it burning for miles.  So much for taking a little time to invest.  My day was shot with putting out a house fire along with my fellow firefighters.  I figured I might make it in for the last hour of trading.

It was looking good for an opportunity, the market was going down big and it was Friday, so the folks who where liquidating positions into the weekend were helping the down trend.  Time to buy, then the tones went off again.  Accident this time…  So instead of buying stocks at the “Friday Afternoon Stock Sale”, I was the Incident Commander at the accident scene.  Rewarding yes, but volunteering doesn’t make money it costs money…  So I felt like I missed the buy on Friday.  Then I sat back and looked at it.  A few percent.  A daily move that looks big when you are zoomed in on the daily chart, but zoom out to a quarterly or a yearly chart.  One day is just a blip.  Even when the news tells you it is the end of the world.  It isn’t…

So yesterday.  I expected a bounce.  Didn’t get it.  Everything was still on sale.  Maybe a bottom?  Or not…  Trying to get out of the habit of trying to pick the perfect entry point, shooting for the bottom tick of a market bottom.  Just want to be somewhere near the bottoming range.  This is more realistic.  So I decided to make a buy to get back in the groove.  Just in case we are bottoming.

Bought a few Ford $12.50 Calls set to expire in January of 2013.  Bought in at $0.32.  Up almost 10% this morning!  Brilliant.  If I sell now.  I am not selling now.  So weather this was a smart move or not remains to be seen.  For now it served the purpose.  To help me get back in the game…

Originally Posted on June 5, 2012  (Before System Upgrade)