Journal of a Professional Irish Gambler

My stocks are going up. IACI and EBAY are in the money, AMZN is 15% down and SYMC is 5% above what I bought it at even though my cover has taken me out of it two weeks ago. My faith in my trend picking is restored, my point of going long seems always out by a month and my cover strategy seriously questionable although I never did get burnt by AAPL or INSP. I won a killer pool competition last night in the Polar Bar and pocketed a sweet little 20 pounds.

SYMC is not getting out of jail as quickly as I hoped. I am feeling less confident about saving my bacon on this one. A week has gone by and it is still hovering 75 cents above my cover call. There has got to be a less riskier way to to lose 8000 dollars. I don't like the fact that I am in four shares and losing in all of them. I normally only concentrate on one. But somehow my strategy has taken into diversification. They say this limits risk but I do not know everyday how much I am actually down without logging in to my account. That means I have to put in a cover stop on four shares. Even if I cover SYMC automatically I will still have three shares still open to the downside. They will represent seventy per cent of my portfolio and still a major risk to more large losses.

Which top stock is heading for their 4th dip in 4 months? I feel these are ready for reverse throws up, SYMC, INSP and IACI. They are touching their 50 day or 200 day moving averages. I will invest 150% of my portfolio for four weeks, the second week in May and then short the same stock 100% or a weak stock that is hitting its 50d or 200d moving average.

I am afraid I am going to be down thousands by the end of today. But still, I have bought 1500 shares in NTES a Chinese net stock. But if Sina's results from yesterday were bad then I am at risk of losing loads. It is the risk I have chosen to take today because I know the direction of the indices for the next two years and I have bought on a six week correction. Fingers crossed you crazy gambling bastard. This is NTES. Sina nose dives on news that their revenue will be cut in the future because of the Chinese government banning all text messages to mobile phones. But they had record forth quarter profit. Despite this they loss thirty per cent in the morning to recover being down only fifteen per cent at the end of the day. My shares in NITE dived too but recovered to where I bought them at. Tomorrow I will sell them if they do not get off to a hot start. I sold my NITE. Just in time because by the end of the day they were down five per cent.  I am gutted my favorite internati...

Here I am in La Manga Spain in June 2005. I bought $16000 of AMZN at 38 in February 2005 and sold them now in June 2005 at 35 at 10% loss which seems like a good move at the time but over next six months they went up 20%. And two years later had gone up 100%.  And 13 years later had gone up 5000% meaning my investment would have been become 840,000 or  63,000 a year profit Jesus now with all this cash, I don´t know whether to do nothing tomorrow on the stock market or go all in. I want to bet on NTES and CTSH but I am scared after seeing Amazon tank 20% last week after weak results. What if that happens to NTES or CTSH if I bet 40,000. I will be down at least eight thousand dollars or sixteen thousand if I use leverage. If I don´t bet, I will probably miss my last opportunity for a a big profit this quarter. Should I wait for another three months or gamble. If I am wrong I will wait a month and then get out like I should have done with EXM which shot through the roof when...

The pick up truck swerved to stop from running me into the tarmac of the hot afternoon. At this moment, I am not the usual happy go lucky Irishman that everyone knows me as. Instead, I am walking the streets of Guadalajara Mexico numb to the outside world, in a daze, just muttering to myself. All I can think is, that I am a truly worthless individual, that I am stupid, that I am a sucker, that I am a fool, that I am an eejit, that I am really just another gambling addict and I really don't care if I die right here and now. But let's go back a day! I get up and log on to my computer and my internet stock broker account. Financial news on the internet centres around a China/US trade agreement break through. One click to an internet news provider and the word on Wall St is that China Prosper, a Hong Kong construction company, is said to be one of the main beneficiaries of the breakthrough. Luckily, they say, it's shares are also listed on the reputable stock exchange in Ne...