Spin-off stock Clearwater Paper, CLW, has been separate from Potlatch Corporation since mid-December 2008 and it is time to check on how it has been doing since.  Looking at the chart below, the first question that is running through my mind is ‘Why isn’t there a disclosure of ownership interest on the bottom of this post?’

Splits:none                                                                                        chart from Yahoo Finance

Clearwater hasn’t done too badly for its shareholders in the nearly year and a half on its own, has it?  Showing an almost classic spin-off stock chart picture, the price dipped immediately after the spin-off, cosnsolidated and moved higher, only to make one more nerve jangling trip to the down side before started a potentially very rewarding trip upward for those who were on board.

So, why might someone not have taken advantage of this “secret” situation that was right out there in plain sight?  There were lots of “good” reasons for not taking action and clearly they weren’t good enough.

OK, Fall 2008 wasn’t a great time to be thinking about getting into a new long position . . . or was it?  Not many people were, but when was the last time that very many people were making very much money?  And, even if you had had the nerve to put on even a small trade, how would you have dealt with that second dip?  Would you have re-entered on the next move up?

The central point here has to be that the times during which it is hardest to get into a good trade are exactly the times when you have to have the mental discipline to shut out all the crowd noise, decide what your system calls for you to do, and do it!   By the time everyone knows it’s a good idea, it is too late.

Finding potentially rewarding situations is not the biggest challenge.  Setting aside all the internal barriers to making those trades is the big challenge. 

And that, my friends, is the real frontier here.  But that’s no secret either.  What apparently is a secret is what you have to do today, tomorrow, and the next day to build that self-knowledge, self-management, self-discipline when it’s clear you need more.

Tags: Clearwater Paper, CLW, emotional self-management, how-to, PCH, Potlatch Corp, self discipline, spin-off stock, stock spin-off, trading, trading discipline, trading plan

Trading and investing successfully is all about how you manage the inherent stresses in your trading plan. And, yes, every trading plan has its own stress signature.

It depends on such factors as the time frame, the number of pieces of information you must consider, the sizes of your positions, and other things.  Together they describe the outside components of your mind-body experience.

Your own personal style, abilities, beliefs, and skills make up the inner portion of the experience.  Some of these are under your control.  Some probably are not.

If you are going to be successful, the pieces have to fit together. Wishing you had the attributes of a day trader when you don’t or a long term investor when you don’t or a person who does all their own research when you hate wading through piles of data, and on and on, are sure fire prescriptions for not only mediocre results, but most likely some level of misery to boot.

Without getting any more touchy-feely than you’re comfortable with, you can take an inventory of what you bring, what you want, what you need, and match it to an approach for trading/investing that has the best chance for success and for being as low stress as fits you.

Tags: investing, stress, stress management, trading

Whoever chose Hot Trading Secrets as the title for J. Christoph Amberger’s 2006 book definitely knows how to write a title.

Whose interest is not piqued by the offer to be let in on secrets?

When they added that it would tell How to Get In and Out of the Market with Huge Gains in Any Climate I knew that I was going to have to read it, even though I concluded long ago that the reasons many people make much more money than I do has very little to do with secrets.

I have read that a belief that other people achieve what they do and have what they have because they hold secrets, they have connections, they started with money, or they have whatever other unfair advantage you can think of , is often held by people who are depressed.

These beliefs aren’t simply excuses, but have been described as going along with an inability or unwillingness to map out a series of small steps that are most likely to lead on to a particular goal. Help these people not think in blocks, but rather in “bite-sized” pieces, and they are very likely to feel better and become more effective.

So, . . . I vowed to look for the tools, the skills, and the knowledge that Mr. Amberger was going to tell me that I would have to have or gain to be more successful, if he indeed knew.

What I found as I read along was that taken that way he did indeed have some very helpful perspectives and specific tools that I will be able to apply to my own situation; some right away and some over time.

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Given that this is an Agora publication, I knew from the outset that there was going to be lots of good stuff in it, perhaps secrets even, but that it was going to be woven into a great story and a subtle, but powerful, “sell” for something.   And, this turned out to be true.  (I suspect that this book might be at least as valuable for an aspiring copywriter as it is for an aspiring trader, but that need be neither here nor there.)

I found it to be well written, engaging, and quite effective at telling the story of how various component teams and services of the Taipan Group come to many of the trade recommendations that they make to their readers as well a how profitable the best ones have been.   There are a couple of references to “proprietory methods”, but for the most part they seem to have put it all out there.

There are links to Taipan websites and e-letters in the sidebar of each chapter, but the author truly has given enough information that you can do it yourself, or you can subscribe to one or several of the services that use the systems described.

There was enough valuable specific information to justify reading and re-reading this book for me, but probably the most valuable gift was a look into how effective systems are built and developed starting from specific observations about how the markets work.

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Given the focus of this site on spin-off stocks,  I find myself with a better understanding of how important it is to remember  that the observation that spin off companies and their parent companies tend to outperform the general market and their sectors is good,  but that that is only a start.

Now I am looking at finding better ways to decide which spin-offs to enter, when, how, and when to get out.

I have not signed up for any newsletters or services  mentined in the book . . . . yet.

Tags: Agora Publishing, Amberger, book review, Hot Trading Secrets, spin-off stocks, trading, trading plan