Stock trading lessons

When placing stop-loss orders, remember to take into account the intrinsic price volatility. I set my limit on Apple a bit low (sold at 53.50) and by closing time it jumped back to ~55. I didn't have the brains to just buy again (partly because I wasn't aware of the cause of the sudden fluctuation, Now, I know it was probably due to some institutional shareholder dumping a lot of shares). The next day, the price jumped a couple of dollars. The next day, again. The same principle that would've kept me out of trouble (don't be too conservative) got me into trouble because I assumed the price would drop back down. Well, the stock isn't that volatile. Finally bought back in at 65 :/ What's happening in the background? Analysts are predicting that the iPod could be doing a lot better in sales and that PC users who buy iPods (who have an almost insurmountable market share in MP3 players in general and iTunes music sales) are significantly more likely to buy Macintosh computers.

Next lesson... When I actually bought the same number of shares back at over 10 dollars more each share, I bought it when the market opened.. now, granted it was after Thanksgiving, but before-hours trading had the price almost a dollar over what it had closed the previous trading day.. I guess I should've let things cool down and let the real traders takes hold first.

Here's to that $100/share price target that crazy analyst set.

UPDATE 10:41 EST 11/29/04: I'm good for now! Apple rose 3 points today to $68.44 probably due to Bank America raising AAPL's price target to $73 dollars. Merril Lynch also supposedly raised its target.