A (winning) position is a good thing to manage
Well, first pat yourself on the back: your initial step -- to buy and hold proves correct. Now you wonder, whence the ideal moment to sell? When does a trend of extreme strength become the moment of obscene strength? Consider the various constituencies:
1) Short-sellers must cover in a capitulative, melt-up run;
2) Short term longs (such as Louis Navallier) who buy and sell, buy and sell, buy and sell, now finally buy and hold, which also gooses the stock short term;
3) Long term longs (such as me) begin to sell their holdings, phasing out quietly.
I have shown (on this blog) the methods to identify these first 3 steps, so I doubt the necessity to reiterate them now.
Because I am the happy holder of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters/GMCR (long, now, for a whopping $40/share profit, ~125%, in a mere 4 months), I thought I would share several possible scenarios and my potential actions...
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First things first. I know, I know, the GMCR chart (above) finally looks especially auspicious to you, but please note intermediate term price resistance occurs at ~$75. (Please use the methods and tools shared previously to identify that price resistance.) Let's examine my time frame...
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The salient fact re GMCR's chart is that its price rise begins to wax parabolic. All chart action reveals subtle clues as to when a trend or pattern will exhaust itself; again, because I have shared previously many excellent methods to age trends, I will not repeat those lessons.
When presented with, as I term it, a trend of extreme price strength, I seek the moment of obscene strength -- typically, a large upside gap that reverses itself that same day or week, and causes a key reversal day. Or, even worse, a key reversal week. I do not wait for the reversal, because the upside price action is prefatory to the reversal. So...
Scenario 1): GMCR breaches above intermediate term price resistance with an opening gap, and rises quickly to my long term price and value objective ($80-$100) before a key reversal. Sell (or lighten your holding) on the gap.
Scenario 2): GMCR floats higher to intermediate term resistance, and declines gently into a new intermediate or long term base, to allow the outlier PE multiple to contract to a more normal relationship. Hold.
One great item about investing is that a price objective thought to require years sometimes needs only a handful of months. Interestingly, as Green Mountain/GMCR possibly accelerates its share price rise, the company reports its quarterly earnings after the close on Friday, 31 July -- which means the next ~2 weeks could be even more profitable, and more rapidly so, for those lucky investors long Green Mountain Coffee Roasters/GMCR.
Full Disclosure: (Still) long Green Mountain Coffee Roasters/GMCR.
-- David M Gordon / The Deipnosophist
Labels: Chart analysis, Market analyses
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