Another green day, another big green day. October is an interesting month – with the unemployment data and all the earnings release, it’s going to be a fun month.

this is my current holdings:

stock                       shares           bought            current             gain/loss 

QXM                        70                 9.80                11.97                 22.13%
FRM                        60                  8.74                10.40                19.02%
LFC                          12                 89.08               96.51                7.54%
VMW                       10                 91.05               101.61              10.09%

Apparently this looks good but I’ve made *A LOT* of mistakes during this period, let me tell you.

I sold 30 shares of QXM @$9.25 ($9.25!! Yes, I know!), and then I sold 50 shares of QXM @$9.60… both times I sold at a loss;
I sold 59 shares of FRM @$8.90…

Guess picking a good stock is not all that hard – you look at their business model, you look at their estimate earnings and P/E, you look into how much debt it has. However, the tricking park is when to sell, hold and buy. I don’t believe the analysist rating (however, CAPS is good to look at) and one thing I’ve learned is that if you are confident about the stock you are holding and the market, you should never panic when the price drops, you might need to keep it a bit longer but it will rebound. When the stock is in a uptrend but the price actually dropped, it’s a great buying opportunity.

In Aug-Sep subprime crisis, stocks went up and down much faster so I shouldn’t use my one week thing to judge how long I’ve been holding a certain stock.

So, what am I going to do now?

Stocks that I’m currently holding – I’m very confident in FRM, QXM and VMW. If the price drops I will actually buy more. VMW earnings are coming in later this month, definitely no sell before that;

Stocks on my wishlist – CHNG, CDGT, STV, NOV ( I will get up early tomorrow for them)
CHNG: China natrual gas, it has been doing really well lately, dropped today… I might want to buy tomorrow.
STV: IPO on Oct 5 with 75% return already. It sounds very risky but hey, high risk high return…
NOV: recommended by NOV… seeking buying opportunities…

Stock that I’m not sure – LFC: it has been doing really well lately but I think it’s slightly over-valued. However, there are just good news that they opened new branches and i will keep holding it when there’s some correction, , maybe.