CSUN: When In Doubt...Get Out

(Click On Charts To Enlarge)
There's a world of difference between analyzing stocks, and actually playing them. I'm posting this trade to bring home the fact that it's REAL MONEY that we're playing with, and that we have to manage it as best we can.

At yesterday's gap up opening of 11.95, I had almost a $10,000.00 gain in CSUN. Gaps are difficult to play because we don't know if it's a "Gap To Crap," meaning that's pretty much the high of the day, then the stock swoons, or if it's a "Gap and Go," a gap higher, after which the stock continues higher.

Sometimes, too, stocks gap higher then pullback and fill part or all of the gap, then move higher again. Since yesterday's gap up in CSUN was a breakout of TWO bullish patterns, I didn't play it for a "Gap To Crap," and sell it into the gap opening. It was a "Gap To Crap!"
Even with the Chinese stocks getting slammed, in general, I was willing to hold CSUN when the entire gap got filled, but I wasn't willing to hold it if it didn't recover into the close, and get back above the 11.53-11.57 breakout.

CSUN didn't recover. UGH. While I still "think" that the chart looks okay and that CSUN "probably" will fill the 9.55-10.11 gap, then move higher, what do I KNOW for a fact? I know that the breakout didn't hold on a closing basis. I know that my $10,000.00 paper gain eroded to a paper gain of $3,600.00. I know that if most of that gap gets filled, my paper gain will have evaporated entirely :(

I cashed CSUN in for the $3,600.00 gain. I always can re-enter it, or play something else.