Durable Goods data

I said in my earlier post that construction problems were now spreading into the commercial sector. The durable goods data confirms this as capital expenditures has declined.

Keep your stops in place on any trades you have active. Remember, good traders and investors will always put a tourniquet on a loss. Never let a trade take you more than 8% in the red. 8% is the absolute maximum. Personally I try to limit my losses on a swing trade to no more than 4% (and sometimes even less depending on where support levels are).

Please.... never invest or trade on hope. That will erase your money. You invest and trade with a plan and that plan is to ALWAYS limit your losses. When a trade or investment does not work out you sell and move on. Don't keep holding it and think it will get better. What if it does not get better.. then you have an investment that starts out at a loss of say 10%... you say "no problem" it will turn around, then your down to a 25% loss. Now you say I can't sell here because it is too big of a loss to sell here. I'll just hold on and one day it will come back. Then your investment is down 50%. Never tell yourself I will hold and wait for a turnaround. Because you don't know if it will. Don't trade/invest on hope... Always have a plan and get out before your losses get bad. No matter how much you like a company or their products you never let that influence your investing smarts. If you go red you cut the loss and limit the risk to your capital.

So many investors fail because they fall in love with companies and think the companies will never do them wrong. Or they let their investment brokers tell them to keep holding on to a bad investment. Just like financial advisers were telling investors during the Enron collapse. Listen to your own logic and discipline, it is your money... not theirs.