Here’s how I traded Evertec (EVTC) badly…but am still making money. (February 19, 2019)
EVTC
I want to talk about Evertec ( NYSE: EVTC ) today. The company reports earnings tomorrow after the bell, they report on Wednesday after the bell. The stock had a heck of a move today for this stock, 5 percent, not too shabby. I want to tell you how I am playing this.
I have owned this stock for a while here, I got it somewhere back here. I have a decent profit on it; I got about 10 percent on it so I guess I bought it a little bit lower. The reason why I am unsure, and this is the reason why I am sharing this with you, is because I have been shaken out of this stock a few times. I first started buying it back here and I was literally looking for this; see this stock here and I wanted to see this stock break out. Bounce off the 50-day moving average, tighten up, boom, here we go. It kind of did it a little bit and then it didn’t.
This is one of our Growth Stocks now. The company has really solid fundamentals, it’s in the software industry, which is big these days; a lot of software companies are rockin’. I wound up selling this for a little bit of a profit, though frankly, it might have been a little loss, I think I made a little money on it. But over the course of the last month, month and a half, I have been shaken out of it a few times. I would have been a heck of a lot better off if I had literally just held my position, taken my position, had my idea as far as what I am going to be doing and then let the trade work for me.
It was actually just a week or two ago that I was looking through my stuff, going through our Growth Stock List stocks, there are about 30 but I will be culling those down, whittling those things down to where we are literally only in the ones that are working really well. And I thought, you know I don’t own this stock now and there is really nothing wrong with the stock I just haven’t been patient with it. I came into today with a pretty good size position; I am doing really well on this.
They report earnings after the bell tomorrow and so this is what my plan is: My plan is that I will take at least half off the table. Typically you would want to just take half off the table if you are going to hold any over earnings. The reason is because if the stock pops you are happy that you held some. If the stock drops you are happy that you sold some. So the only way to really do it is a 50/50 split if you are not just going to close out the entire position: because you don’t want to be holding the stock over earnings because you might give everything away.
That’s the way I am going to trade it. But the lesson that I have to myself, it is actually in my notes I am just reading from it; be more patient with a stock holding that remains in consolidation as long as it is acting okay. It might not be breaking out on my preferred timetable but I don’t get to choose. Just keep the initial stop in place with a “Good till canceled” order and leave the stinking thing alone. If a stock isn’t doing anything then there is really nothing to micromanage.
I was really micromanaging stock that didn’t require and micromanagement and frankly, it was only through the grace of our good Lord that I held some stock going into today. I could have just as easily been out of it.
So my advice to you in your trading is If you have got a stock that is working for you but you have an opinion as far as what you are doing, what you think it is going to do, well then, just stick with it. Just stick with the stock and let the trade play out. Don’t just be trying to eke out little profits here and there. You are going to wind up essentially just grinding away and giving your broker all your money through these tight little commissions. Just let the thing work and when it breaks out you are going to be a happy man.
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