Addon Buy:(SNDA), New Buy:(LFT)

I recognized some time ago that orders executed in the first half hour the market is open can end up causing trouble. The first half hour is often quite volatile, and can act very differently than the rest of the day. This was the case Friday morning, as the market opened on a tear and triggered the buy stop for my second and final position in (SNDA) at a price of $64.22. Shortly thereafter the rally faded and (SNDA) ended up closing down a couple percent on the day.

The weekly chart still looks good and the downward move was on lower volume, below average in fact. Nonetheless, I have to admit that if I had it to do over again, I would not purchase this stock. It may go on to make me money, but that's not the point. I preach over and over that the system is what matters, yet I got on a bit of a good run picking stocks and just like that I purchased (SNDA) no where near any kind of legitimate buy point. This time it may work, but it's not a system and over time that kind of behavior will not be successful for me. I'm in the stock now and the market is seeing a strong rally so I may get away with this mistake.

What made things even clearer to me was that (LFT) staged a massive breakout on Friday and I was fully invested. The capital I had put into (SNDA) should've been waiting for a true breakout like (LFT) had. I used my margin to purchase (LFT) and I'll be very cautious with this. Basically I will evaluate (SNDA) and (LFT) daily and look to sell one or both of them if they're eating up profits from my other position(s). In a rally working as well as this one, I don't mind going on margin, but we'll see if it burns me.

Finally, (ARST) had a phenomenal day. It dumped over 10% early, coming within a few percent of my stop loss order, only to rebound off the 10 day moving average and close up a 45 cents. Very bullish behavior. If it can hold $18 a share going into earnings on Thursday I'll be in good shape.