New Buy:(SNDA)

It's been so long since I've posted anything here, I'm glad I remember how to type!

I've had a few friends ask me about the lack of activity, and have to admit I'm glad there's someone besides me who reads this blog.

I try to make it a point not to come here and post my general thoughts and opinions about the market. For one thing, they are almost always wrong. I'm guilty of getting caught up in the moment, and often get dragged a long a bit by whatever the market has done the last day or two. More importantly, my opinion just doesn't matter. It's best to stay out of the habit of formulating predictions and opinions about the market as these can only serve to hurt me.

I believe the only thing that matters is the actual action of the market. That means until we get a confirmed rally accompanied by leading stocks breaking out of sound patterns, there really isn't much to talk about. Cash is king.

To that point, I'm proud to say that I think it's been something like three months since my last stock trade. I've let a few 'confirmed rally's go buy without making any trades, because I just didn't see the necessary leadership. In a market this bad, patience is the best practice. Capital preservation is the most important thing. I've been very successful in this, my only losses are the cost of research materials.

Having said that, I could've made more productive use of this down time. I intended to define a business plan for my trading using my current read - 'Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom.' Unfortunately, a very stressful period at work took almost all of my time and emotional energy for the last six months or so, and the rest went to my family (as it should be).

So, I still have this homework to do, and for the first time in awhile I actually feel up to tackling it. I look forward to commenting on the process here.

Now, about the market. For some reason, last Friday got my attention. It felt 'different.' I certainly don't invest money based on a feeling, but I started paying closer attention to the market's action. I began to look for a follow through day, and consider which stocks on my watchlist seemed most promising.

Today we got the technical follow through day on the NYSE indexes (Dow and SP500). I say 'technical follow through) because it met the definition of up at least 2% in higher volume than the prior day. Whether it will develop into a tradeable rally remains to be seen. We'll need leading stocks to break out of sounds bases and make nice gains.

I liked the action of the market over the past week enough that I made a first and second purchase of (SNDA). The relative strength line on this stock is great, it's in a group with momentum and has a running mate in (NTES), the fundamentals are there and I like the price and volume action in the chart. I made my initial purchase just above the $33.70 buy point at $33.75. I then pyramided up with a smaller purchase at $34.54, 2.5% above the ideal buy point.

We'll see what tomorrow brings, I have to admit it's nice to be back in the market after such a dreary period we've seen. Whether it will end tomorrow is anyone's guess...