Successful Trading – Taking Profits - Part 2Written by Chuck Cox
Suppose your position has made a big move and you moved your stop to your purchase price as recommended. Then let’s say your stock continues to make a big move and now we’re asking again questions we asked back in first paragraph. The first profit taking technique you can use is a trailing stop. If you moved your stop to your purchase price, then you’ve already used a trailing stop. Now you can continue to move your stop up as price rises until market “stops” you out of position. So in essence, what you’re doing is letting market decide when to take profits.Bear in mind that you don’t have to use same price gap that was used when you first set your stop. That initial move was done to protect your account – once you’ve taken threat of a losing trade away from your account, you can do most anything with your stop after that. One approach that some traders use is to place their stop at half way point between their purchase price and present price. This approach is giving half of your profits back to markets, but it’ll keep you in market longer giving stock plenty of room to move. A variation of this approach is to move up your stop to 75% profit level after a period of time has elapsed. Another profit taking technique for traders is
| | Balance Your Checkbook - A Vital Habit to Develop Written by Thelma Coleman
As we matured into adulthood, whole process of growing up and making a life of our own entailed a great deal of new responsibility. Let’s face it, nobody wants to deal with chores of daily living, among most dreaded and overlooked being management of one’s finances. We all love money, that’s what we all work so hard for, to earn money and save and spend it as we see fit. Unfortunately, earning money also entails keeping track of your expenditures in order to be fully aware of how much money you have to spend, and how much you’ve socked away for future or a “rainy day.” Bounced checks can have an adverse effect on your credit score, depending on reporting policies of financial institution involved. I think that we can all agree that spending a little time with your calculator and checkbook beats daylights out of dealing with bounced checks, not so insignificant fees associated with them and deleterious effect on your credit rating. You’re in our program to get your credit under control and eventually rebuild your credit Balancing your checkbook is fairly easy, especially if you take a few simple steps to streamline process. Every time you earn money and deposit it in your checking account, write it down in your checkbook ledger. Or if it makes it easier, buy a separate ledger and use that (they’re often larger than one you get with your checkbook). Also take an envelope and set it aside for receipts you get when you use your bank debit card to withdraw funds (or make a purchase) so you can calculate your account balance as accurately as possible. The same goes for other spending you do. Make a point of writing everything down. If you forget even a single item, it can result in undue time and effort trying to reconstruct these expenses from memory or to purchase information from your bank. In fact, you might do well to make a habit of saving every receipt, maybe in a shoebox or something like that, so that you always know that between your ledger and your receipts you have everything you need – even if you forgot to record something. But this must become habit or you’ll only end up frustrating yourself even more.
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