Decision and Hindsight

In stock trading the result of every decision is only kown with hindsight. Today I woke up to news that AONE had signed a deal with an electric car company in the US. The stock was up 10%, after I increased my share count by an additonal 250 shares yesterday.

At first, I thought about not selling the position and holding on to it for the longer term, but the charts were telling me differently. I sold 250 shares at 22.15 thinking that I would hold on to the the other 250 shares for the rest of the day. However, within an another 10 minutes I decided to sell the remainig 250 shares at 21.93. Immediately after I sold it, I felt that I had acted hastily. However, the chart indicated that 23 was a point of resistance and it also indicated that 19.60 was a point of support. The price had certainly jumped a great deal on the news, but more importatantly, it had jumped close to a resistance point which was to be used as an exit point.

Turns out that I made the right decision on this trade. But I only know that because the price closed at 20.40. How was I to know for sure that this would be the right choice to make? I did not, I only made a choice with the information I had. From this I conclude that instead of suffering over every trading decision I should be a bit more relaxed when I make my trading decision and live with the consequences.

The truth is that there is no way of knowing for certain if the trade is the correct trade until after the facts. And that is the art of trading! Making the best decision with the information at hand and living with the consequences, whether good or bad.

And so, I decided to buy VLO again. I shunned it when it was at 17.9 but decided I had to have it when it was pushing towards the high of the day at 18.31. I think this was a premature trade but I don't want to wake up tomorrow to find out that I missed out on VLO rallying back to 19 after forming a decent support at 18.