October 25, 2019 

Name Change!

I decided that it was time to change the name of Trades in Play to Speculation in Play. Most of the techniques and activities in this portfolio are speculative investing both in terms in how I'm approaching the positions and length of time.

Trades are typically much shorter-term holdings - weeks, days, or even hours - where some of the positions in the Speculation in Play portfolio have been held for months (with a few even more than a full year).

So, welcome to Speculation in Play! The name has changed but not much else has! 😉

The Week's Biggest Winner & Loser

Revolve Group (RVLV)

Revolve Group (RVLV) is the IPO everyone loves except investors, losing another -4.77% during an up week to earn itself its spot as the week's Biggest Loser.

Despite being one of the only profitable IPOs of 2019, RVLV just can't catch a break even with every analyst at its back.

Portfolio Allocation

Current Position Performance

This Week’s Moves

Gossamer Bio (GOSS): +13.79% Gain in 30 Minutes?!

Market orders are dangerous. I have taken to using trailing stop orders to attempt to get better buy and sell prices, however, sometimes market action will whipsaw so erratically that you can have an order filled nowhere near where you wanted to.

Case in point, I had a trailing stop on Gossamer Bio (GOSS) set to trigger if the stock dropped to $14.68 and then try to fill at $0.05 higher. In practice, if GOSS dropped to $14.68, my market order would place at $14.73 and fill shortly afterward (in theory).

On Tuesday, GOSS opened at $14.49 nearly -15% under its Monday close with no news and then rocketed nearly +21% to $17.52 in less than five minutes! My trailing stop order triggered at $14.68 but wasn't able to fill until $15.898 because the price action was that fast.

Given that $15.898 was more than 8% higher than where I wanted to fill, I immediately placed a stop order to sell the new shares if GOSS lost its footing, which it did, with my sell order filling at $18.09, capturing +13.79% of gains in less than a half hour of trading.

The flip-flopping price action lowered my per-share cost -6.8% from $16.02 to $14.93. Currently, I have no additional buy targets as my per-share cost is very near GOSS's new $14.49 all-time low and I am targeting $22.00 to sell my entire position and effectively capture nearly a 50% total-position gain in just a few weeks.

GOSS closed the week at $18.66, up +3.15% from where I sold on Tuesday.

Revolve Group (RVLV): Added to Position

Revolve Group (RVLV) made a death-defying -10% dive on Tuesday, triggering a trailing stop order I had placed at $20.75 which filled at $20.848. The order lowered my per-share cost -4.95% from $29.67 to $28.20, still more than 35% higher from Tuesday's levels.

At this point, my position is about 18-19% overweight to my allocation target (on a cost basis) so I'm holding off any additional buying until we see where RVLV goes from here. Mind-blowingly, hedge funds and other analysts continue to be wildly bullish on RVLV and its forward-looking prospects, however, I'm holding pat with my current allocation.

My first sell target is actually right around my per-share cost as it's right at a key 50% retracement from July's highs to Revolve's current levels.

RVLV closed the week at $20.97, up +0.59% from where I added on Tuesday.