Taking a Big Swing and Missing

I hate the feeling - being up at the plate and taking a called 3rd strike. Oh! If I could just take it back! Being that we are about two weeks away from opening day, I thought a little baseball analogy would best describe today.

Yesterday was one of my best days as an investor ever. Today was one of my worst. MON was a big reason for the screw up today. I believed in yesterdays rally and lacked the discipline to cover or sell my long position this morning and take profits. I simply spent moments of the day starring in disbelief that an agricultural commodity play would go down 12% on no news.

In hindsight, it appears to be really dumb, but being unfamiliar with the price action (it is a fairly new holding) caused me to stay with my call options. Holding options like you might a stock is a recipe for disaster. I know that, but broke the rules and paid for it.

I also did that on Monday with GS and it more than paid off yesterday for me when GS rocketed on positive news, but in that case I had a thesis about GS's earnings and how the Street and the stock would react. Here, with MON, I am holding because it a good investment play for a market sector that will continue to see demand and price increases and as a hedge against inflation. My plan was to hold the options for a month and exercise it to stock. Well, out-of-the-money options are worthless, so I need a better plan.

I don't know whether to be grateful that it closed above its lower trend line (Chart) or face reality that the chart looks less attractive this afternoon than it did this morning. So the question becomes: Was today profit taking or something different?

Something different means a multi-day move lower that I can't afford, even after today's losses. Profit taking means it may recover tomorrow. My pain threshold is now low and the position is one button click away from being sold. I can't sit on a mistake that is way past salvation, but this stock has recently demonstrated its ability to make sharp moves in both directions thereby stopping me from making a decision.

I took a big swing today expecting the rally to hold and MON to turn up. It didn't happen. I need to go to the batting cage.