As I expected, Blackboard (BBBB), after being up nearly 20% in a single day last week, has fallen to $30, more than $2 under where I sold. I bought half my former position back. With commissions this essentially puts me $40 ahead of where I was. Not much, I know, but it was fun to give it a try. I'll be watching to see if BBBB drops further; if it does, I'll certainly consider re-establishing my full original position, maybe a few shares bigger.
In retrospect I should have sold all my shares of everything, though. From the peak of around $12,600 my portfolio has lost more than $600 in a week. Selling everything and then re-buying it a week later would have cost me $154 in commissions, but that still would have left me $450 ahead. I expect something of a rebound soon, though.
Today, Blackboard (BBBB) closed at $32.42, a one-day gain of $5.34 or 19.72%. I sold (using a limit order) at $32.10 about half an hour before closing. While I actually want to continue to own this stock, my feeling that a gain that large is bound to be followed by profit-taking within a few days, and I'm hoping that I'll have an opportunity to get back into it at $30 or so. Since I owned 51 shares, this'll mean I'll either end up with an additional hundred bucks or so in cash, or an extra few shares, all for $14 in commissions.
Timing the market is reportedly a very hard thing to do successfully. I am by no means an expert here, but nearly 20% in a single day seems like a pretty clear sign to me. Still, it's entirely possible that the price of BBBB will keep going up and we'll never see it below $32 again. In which case, I still made 60% on the stock in under a year! This, in other words, seems like a win-win situation to me.