Hello Friends!

I start out each entry or almost every entry with that comment because I mean it.  I also mean it when I say I am an amateur.  So always keep that in mind.

You may have reached this website because you searched "stock pick" on Google.  Or maybe you were looking for "stock advice" or maybe you have been here before and understand what I am doing as I write my stock selections and share with you my actual trades and results.

That doesn't really matter.

For picking stocks may well be the easiest part of the entire equation.  There are many ways to evaluate stocks, for the most part I am a momentum investor.  I select stocks with daily momentum of price, recent momentum of earnings, longer-term momentum of improving fundamentals, with reasonable financials, desirable valuation, and an acceptable chart.

I don't always get all of those criteria met, but those are the bulk of the things I consider.  I am not much different from many other investors who similarly look to select stocks with similar criteria.

But a larger question remains.  When do you buy a stock?  When do you sell a stock?  And how do you respond to the market environment in making your decision--in other words--is there any way to avoid bear markets by minimizing equity exposure during these difficult times, and is there similarly any way to maximize equity exposure during bull markets and positive market environments?  And can we do this automatically?

It is tough enough to select a stock, but managing your portfolio and responding automatically to market action is even a larger demand put upon my own strategy.

And to top it off, I am trying to do this publicly.  To share my successes and failures with all of you and try to stick to a strategy in a disciplined fashion.  And my strategy isn't refined, I am learning that I need to make changes as I implement my own decisions.  I still lose money when stocks decline and make money when stocks advance. 

But if I can develop an approach that adjusts automatically to the market, that guides me to select certain stocks, that lets me know when to be selling those same positions--whether in part or in entirety--I shall achieved something far greater than any particular 'great call'.  

Thank you for coming along with me in this journey.

Yours in investing,

Bob