Aloha!  When did you get there?  Did you get a chance to rub shoulder w/ Obama and share your thots on short-selling w/ him? 

Enjoy! 

iPunter,
       No doubt your post is a bit philosophical or cheem to me, but i think i understood what you meant. True indeed to preserve capitals.
20% is  a lot  but if something goes below this, something is really bad, so getting out is wise. Holding has opportunity costs, no doubt it might go up again (esp for blue chips) but there is a cost of getting stuck.

       thanks for the inputs. I've learnt! Will try this way. To average up and cut loss at 20%. To cut loss at 10%, it is a bit noisy, so maybe 20% is better.

Actually, i read it from somewhere that it is risk/reward ratio. If you think it has a upside of 100%, divide by 3, you get 33% which is for you to average up. You divide by 4 (25%) for you to cut loss. So the risk:reward ratio is 1:3
This is how i arrive at 20%, (about 25%).

Your method is quite ok but this is how I do it. The first buy is the important one. Let's say I might get 10  or 15 lots (sometimes when I am confident downside limited I put in 20 - 25 lots) on first buy at say 40c, the when it goes to 45 or 46c, I buy maybe just 10 lots, and at 50 or 51c buy another 10 lots. I use the 5c averaging up method. It seems strange to buy at higher price but analyse carefully and you realise you are covering your positions in this way. Just like in war, your comrades cover positions when you attack your enermy.

If the price comes down on first buy there is no need to panic. I might average up just 5 lots at wide difference of 5- 10c and up to certain point when I proved really wrong and price just won't reverse up, then I get out.

To most people, the idea of selling a stock when it has gone down 20% is an impossible thing to do.

That would mean losing face and admitting a wrong and defeat, and saying sorry to bad Mr. Market!

The 'war chant' is 'rather wait,  it may go back up tomorrow' ... Hehehe... 

Yes true! It happened to me last time and i missed out a lot!
Price is relative just like speed is relative as Einstein had said before.

There is one method which i'm trying now but not sure it is ok.
Use some percent  to buy to try the base. If it goes up about 30%, add the same proportion and so on. If the any stock goes down by about 20% of its peak, get out.

What do you think of this? In this way, we do not have to track so closely, and let the good ones run up, chop off the lousy ones.

I typed from internet outside. Hm...not sure why font so small.

You are right. Now plane take off and after a while develop engine problem.

Let's say you put $10k into a margin account. You can buy shares up to about 3 times i.e $30k worth of shares.If you have existing shares, just ask your broker to transfer the shares into margin account after you fill up some forms. If you leave money in margin account, your money also earn interest and it seems higher than bank interest

Hi friend

It is true the plane will take off.

But wat happen 5 min.into the journey,the cockpit discover some engine faults and have to return to base?

Like wat happen in sept.08,the plane has to abort the flight.....habis lah...finitto...died...wan tan(in mandarin).

Hi friend,i have great respect for u.May i know how many years have u been trading in the share mkt?And wat sort of margin loan do ur broker firm allow to borrow at any one time?No offence intented.