Bookkeeping: Stopped Out

I might be stopped out of a few positions today ... I will list them here, somehow I have a suspicion that it won't just be the one that hit this morning.

So far

1. Yingli Green Energy (YGE) at $12.75; after its spike Friday to near $14 I took about 1/6th of the position off the table to lock in some gains (too small to post) and moved up my stop on the remaining 2.5% stake from $12.45 to $12.75. Entry was just over $13 so a minor loss. This was a "rental" not an investment based on the potential for reflation to re-emerge as a trend after a week of traders abandoning it. It appears they are done with that idea for now. Since solar has very little "strong hands" once a solar trade reverses, the stocks begin losing 10-15% a day, so YGE could potentially be a short here.
   
2. Atwood Oceanics (ATW) most of the position hit at my stop of $23.70.
   
3. Mosaic (MOS) 75% of the position at $43.90
   

Right now it seems on the bottom end of this range traders are using the 200 simple moving average - it is falling quickly, from 906 middle of last week to 900 today. Remember it is losing about 2-3 points a day. Actually the 50 and 200 day moving averages are converging even quicker than I anticipated - right at a round number of S&P 900 no less. A close below will of course be bearish.

Commodities - the very crowded trade - continue to get pummeled. We cut back some Friday (JRCC was cut severely) but we don't have a huge exposure here since about 8 days ago every trader in the world was in the 'reflation trade'. Crowded.

My strategy is to let my stops take me out into cash one by one if necessary, reducing or in some cases taking me out of stocks completely. On a break below support, than get to work on the short side. These gap ups or downs at the open are quite nearly impossible to trade without chasing unfortunately.

If we bounce here, which has been the pattern - all these stop outs will probably look bad in retrospect due to locking in "bad prices". But it is a conservative route.