The Long And Short Of It - Thursday

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Today was my best P&L day in over 4 months. My entire portfolio was up 2.8%, which I am quite happy with given that the markets were only up about 0.2% today. The majority of the performance was due to a small number of large positions in my LT accounts which finally woke up and posted strong gains.

Some of day's biggest contributors:

• Sensio 3D - SIO.V (+7.3%)
• Neo Material Tech - NEM.TO (+6.2%)

Sensio 3D is one of my favorite LT plays that I've recently blogged about. You can read more about the company here if you missed it http://johnnystocks.blogspot.com/2011/02/3d-tv-contrarian-play.html. After falling for most of the year, buyers suddenly came back in volume driving the share price up by as much as 13% at one point. Hopefully this was a sign that the bottom has been seen. I will be watching the price action tomorrow for confirmation. 1.10 should be a very strong support level now.

Neo Material Tech is a processor of rare earths. From what I understand about rare earths (which is not a lot), once the metals are mined they require a lot of processing to make them useable. NEM.TO stands to benefit from the sudden increase in the number of mining plans that have recently been announced.

Today's Trades:

• Bought HGD.TO @ 11.05, then sold it @ 11.74 for a 2.8% loss. Gold shares looked like they were poised to break lower and provided good risk/reward. Little did I know that gold would turn around and rally like a mofo. By the end of the day HGD.TO closed at 10.43, so here's a good example of why stops make sense.
• Bought HND.TO @ 7.78 as a short natgas play. It closed @ 8.22 (+5.7%). You can read my blog post here at http://johnnystocks.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-natural-gas-is-short.html if you are interested in the rationale behind the trade.
• Added 50% to ENOC exisitng position @ 24.76. I was already long @ 25.81. If price falls again tomorrow I will probably sell this position for a loss.
• Bought PC @ 13.32.
• Bought TBT @ 39.53. I issued a trade alert on this one earlier today when I went long.

Good Night