To trade or not to trade

To trade or not to trade. Or to put it more accurately- to book profits or not... that is the question. The other question to ask is at what level would I want to book profits?. Do I book at current levels or do I wait for my important pivot of 4388 to be broken to sell my current long positions? While it might be best in the long run to go for the home run every time I trade, short term compulsions make it simpler to book once in a while.

After lot of thought, I have reached a healthy compromise. I will not wait for 4388 to be broken. Instead, if the market trades below 4525 I will cut my long positions. May be even sell a little short. And then take it as it comes. Clearly a rally above 4610 negates all this and hence is a good level to reinstate long positions or to cut any short positions that I might have built up. So goes my thinking.

World markets continue their uptrend. Commodities did slide a bit yesterday but that was not significant enough to signal a trend change. S&P rallied in the second half for a decent close after being more than a percent down mid session.

Normally I would end this note with some sporting story or a non market comment. But this has been an unusually quiet week with very little sporting action and no news worth talking about. Armstrong coming 3rd in Tour de France is good stuff but not the miracle one was hoping for. Massa getting seriously hurt in F-1 is news but what can one say about that?. The possibility of Schummacher returning as a replacement is different. Now that would be something. If he decides to return at the age of 40 and then even wins a race?. That would be stuff of legends!!!.