Trying to find the balance here for you. Time wise and length wise. I don’t want all my posts to be 1000 word booklets but as we get to know one another, I want to put a lot of the info for you in the blogs. The “what I am” and “what I am not” kind of stuff. Later I will have that in another section of the website for new readers to reference, for now I am just putting things out there for you to see. So you can watch me make my mistakes real time…

Remember that is what is different here. I post every few days so you can see what I am thinking and trying and what I get wrong and how I react. I don’t sell investment advice, so I don’t strive for a certain goal at the end of some reporting period type finish line. I just post my opinions and mistakes and let you see them for what it is worth. I will sell some advertising and maybe some books and educational things over time so you know where my financial incentives are and you can decide if they motivate me more than presenting an honest opinion for you. (You should always perform this analysis on any information resource you use).

Ok before I go too far down the foundation information road again, I wanted to post another trade for you to see. I bought IRBT on Friday July 6, 2012. It is now about 6% of this trading portfolio.

The investment club that I belong to bought some IRBT a couple months back. We look at the fundamentals there and we trade a bit but try to pick longer term investments. Then when IRBT warned and the stock crashed the club sold half the position. Hedging their bets. Locking in losses but not totally giving up.

I have been watching it and took a small position Friday. It could go either way, always can… I will probably put a protective stop-limit order under it. I like to call this an “Insurance Floor”. Just in case I am wrong… For now I just bought in and I will be around the office, so I will be watching it but I should put a floor under it to limit my losses even though I think it will probably go up from here.

So we will see if I am wrong. But we won’t know until I sell. What it does between now and the time I sell will not matter. The gains or losses I lock in upon the actual sale will put points on the board (or take them away).

With those F Call options way underwater, I need to put some points on the board. Or take some time off for self analysis. They are only a small speculative portion of my portfolio but they still represent a position that I took and that I got wrong, so far anyway. Remember they didn’t expire and I didn’t sell so I haven’t locked in the losses yet…