Saturday, January 23, 2010

Meislered

Sometimes, on Google Eve, when our campfire vigil comes to a close, we don't have to worry about dousing the fire. On those occasions, the market does that for us.

Last week, I had already bought an extra hundred shares of GOOG in anticipation of a great earnings report that would bode well for the future, if not beyond. I waited until we had a selloff from the near-term high of $629 and picked up the hundo for $580. It looked good because Karen Finerman, of Fast Money, was buying at $600.

Then, on Thursday, a lot of things hit at once and the market (which was down already) got ugly. Midday, GOOG was struggling to hold $578, so I put in an order to sell my hundo at $582. If it got there, fine. If not, I'd hunker down.

GOOG spiked to $586 and my order executed. In the next hour, earnings were released and the stock got Meislered, which is technical for "whacked". At 4:20 PM, I bought the hundo back at $556.45

Most of the day Friday, GOOG stayed above my purchase price. But at the close, it slumped to $550.01. In the after hours, some stupid news from Larry and Sergey, that could have waited until Monday, came across the wire and traders, still around at that hour, shorted GOOG down to $545.25, on the hope that there's worse to come.

No comments: