Page 816 - How to Make Money in Stocks Trilogy

92 HOW TO MAKE MONEY IN STOCKS SUCCESS STORIES

tion going between monthly meetings, John formed a Google Group, which
is basically a way for members to communicate with one another via e-mail
through threaded conversations.
Meetup members can simultaneously e-mail everyone in the group and
discuss the market or stocks. These e-mails get sent out to everyone in the
group who opts to participate. John finds this a terrific way to update mem-
bers about stocks that are breaking out or perhaps breaking down as well as
answer questions from the group about stocks or the overall market. Other
seasoned traders regularly contribute to the conversation to help newer
investors engage and learn.
John also e-mails annotated charts of stocks that are setting up with com-
ments concerning the stock’s fundamentals or technical action. John says
that teaching and helping other investors on a daily basis keeps him in touch
with the market’s current action as well as how the leaders are performing.
Before leading the IBD Pasadena Meetup group, John says he was
“excited to find knowledgeable CAN SLIM traders at the Santa Monica
IBD Meetup. During two years of attending these Meetups, I not only
developed some great friendships but also honed my skills and increased
confidence in my trading.”
As a busy attorney, John says he sometimes misses a stock that is breaking
out of a base pattern, but he realizes that a good stock will usually offer
other entry points, like a pullback to the 10-week line. He also notes that in
a good rally, there will usually be several quality stocks to buy, so if he misses
one stock, there will be others breaking out. John usually owns no more than
six stocks at a time and tries to narrow that down to the few that are per-
forming the best.
“I find most of the stocks that I trade by reading IBD,” he says. “As I’m
reading through the paper, I keep MarketSmith open so I can study the
chart of a stock that looks interesting.”
John looks back fondly at the trade that got him excited about investing.
“EMC, the computer data storage company, was my first big trade. When I
look back, I realize how lucky I was to capture a 400% gain and yet how
much I still had to learn.
“I first learned about the stock from an article in IBD and then met one
of EMC’s executives at a trade show who got me really excited about the
company’s growth potential.
“Not knowing much about sell rules, I didn’t sell the stock as it topped in
late 2000, but I had read in IBD that leaders were breaking down and distri-