Losing money is no fun.

I guess you can say everyday that I haven't traded since I sucked him some huge losses has made the gut wrenching feeling I get when I think about my losses appear bigger and bigger. Today was the first day I stopped having that feeling and didn't look at all potential trades as a way to make back my losses. Today, it was all about making a winning trade, and not making back my money. I used a trade today, and though my gain was small, it helped me clear my mind and get back into the swing of things.

GOTS is no longer the little hangout it was. The room today had over 300 people. The crowd interested in pennystocks and shorting tickers using TOS has grown significantly. However, if there is anything to be said about the market, its that it is an efficient one that makes profitable strategies difficult to be consistent with. Sure sideways action maybe difficult to see and reserving shares may be difficult to do, but this is the point of a competetive market. I'll be going back to my basics. I hope to begin trading again. My last bout last week with GNW definetly proved to me just how possible it is. No I didn't catch a piece of the massive onslaught of buying that occurred. But I did manage to lose a small penny in the morning grind. Tough luck. No worries. Lets get on to some tickers of interest.

CWST, PNX, VTSS are all stinkers that we(GOTS et. all) have heard of in the past. They pumped recently.. CWST over 100% and sideways action is always a good sign. These are all playable given my account size and I anticipate they shoud be plenty to watch given I am just trying to get back into things. Market is closed on the 'morry.

*12/1 edit* picks from darkside:

KFN 1.58

MMPI 1.24

EVC 1.56

HTMX .31

GASS 4.82

EMAG 1.82

NFP 3.04

IFX 1.40

Shall see how the trading goes on 1/2. Happy new year folks. Its good to be back.

No room for new strategies

I placed my bets too early on the penny financials. I went long on a group of 5 of them. BKUNA, SCA, ABK, DSL, and RDN. I spread my money and waited. I could have suffered big had I gone all in on one. RDN fell over a 1$ on my position. These are penny stocks, %age wise, the movements were significant. I held through some minor red, but slowly, the cummulative losses had me worried. I covered my long positions and my account is down $1500. Its tough. This means its back to shorting pumps for me. Chasing momentum plays is hard. Shorting pumps requires waking up on time and patience. Further, all of this intense charting i've been doing keeping track of the penny financials and the usual lot from the % gainers list from yahoo.

My stocks broke their 52 week lows. I took big losses on them. My account has been corrected. The most important thing is the lessons i've learned. I really am not in the place to take positions like I did. Seriously, I bet on a government bailout. I was way too cocky, and my account was not big enough. This is why i'm down over 1500$ at the moment. In fact, I think this is a lesson that extends beyond account size. Shorting pumps is so easy. Its just waiting for the right price break. Seeing stocks like OPTR, DIN, and DDR had me ready to get a piece of the action. I was ready to break 10k in one position. People in GOTS may do it every day, but I'm going to be working slowly back to even. From there, I anticipate continueing the shorts to 10K as I originally planned.

Despite my mistakes in the penny financials. I know they are LR buyins. ABK broke 1 dollar today. Anything that breaks 52 week lows is on my radar for long positions. Checking extended period MAverages wouldn't have predicted this dip either. Credit ratings cut these corporations down, and they are part of why DJI isn't at its top either. Auto corps are stealing media at this point. Once the fluff dies down, I want the small lenders to get the help they need. ESPECIALLY if the automakers get what it looks like they might.... a piece of the FED.

Really, a new strategy all together.

Alright guys, I'm taking a break from day trading. It takes a lot of time, to be able to watch these penny stocks catching and shorting momentum stocks, and waking up early to reserve shares with TOS. Add in a full courseload, a part time job, two big extracurriculars, and you have my non-stop life. I enjoy it. I enjoy it a lot actually. But I'm always interesting in trying new things. I have my iPod, meaning I can check stocks, and use TOS's thinkpod software to trade anywhere I go on campus. I'm going to start playing stocks long term as a habit. Multi-day will be the normal hold, probably even weeks. I'll buyin on technicals and lows mostly. My favorite crowd, coincidentally, is at some nice lows. The penny financials are where I plan to start. DV commeneted on this in his latest post. I'd agree, ABK is a buyin. The chart is sinusoidal with nodes at 1 and 3. Tripling some money would be nice. Multiple times, even better. This is what I'm thinking I will do. Day trades will no longer be a concern. They will always be there just in case.

Now for my watches.

ABK- If I could name my first real stock, it would be ABK. I saw it go 1 to 10 and then back down. I know it can move. Just ask Ramtajogi.

DSL- Not as big of a ranger as ABK has been recently, but back when FRE/FNM collapsed, this had an amazing run. Nicely set at 1.58

BKUNA- Had a great day on this stock before. Nice at only .40 cents. Could really hit a homer with this one. Definitely a low, and my number one watch!

FRE- Nicely set below 1.00 for now. Has dipped to the .60's in the past twenty days, so the bottom might not be in sight yet, but I'll watch it.

FMD-Shortable. Nice at 1.50's and has touched the 1.20's in the past twenty days.

BIOS- Needs more downside, but it has the volume and volatility that fits my standards.

The rest I'll just list: RDN, PMI, RAMR,DTG

This is enough to watch, especially for me. If you want more ideas, just google the shorting ban on the 700+ companies. There will be plenty for you there. Check out the small mortgage lenders like TMA.

Why I intentionally took the biggest loss I could.

I have been really sloppy lately. Take a look at my investment record and you will see a steady streak of losses. I enter stagnant stocks, try to beat the crowd, and refuse to reserve shares pre-market in lieu of sleeping in. I took a huge loss today just so my account would be at a low and I would have to focus on taking small and steady gains. Call me a masochist, but as I have said before, my confidence is not hurt. I

I'm o/n short on SAH.

PLA still hasn't given it all back.

CVI, has sideways action at 5, after some nice gains from 3.

Lets focus on these and some pre-market hits for the day tommorow. Lots of potential in these, no need to try to find a 10 stock list to follow. If these fail, plenty more opportunities for the rest of week. Really.

A new trading strategy all together

Lately, I've been focusing on being right. If I pick a stock and put my capital up, I hold till I see things going my way. I've held LVLT for a week on and off and even two weekends! This is not what I anticipated doing with my day trading career. This has lead to my new focus being time periods. I hold over many hours, and pay close attention to 10/60 crosses to predict the two most volatile sections of trading during the day- open and close. In fact, I've gotten to be much better at this. Regardless, watching some Wall Street Warriors made me realize that even with my small account, taking green is much better than holding for more. You'll hear every trader say this, but as always, whats the point if you don't follow your own rules. I've held LVLT to below 6k in my account twice. Tommorw I plan on liquidating my position and starting fresh. Sure I will be back to my lows, but as I made a entire post about earlier. I'm very confident. Even noob comments on how it is easy to have .5-1k days. It really is. Just look at DIN, DDR, NCC, TRE in the past. The list goes on and one, but these stocks have huge one-days %tage P/L. Yes, I could find an ABK at its bottom, hold tight and double my account over a few weeks. But I am way more interested in picking up some solid day-trading fundamentals then hitting a homerun.

Addiontally, some of the guys have been writing about risk/reward and risk managment. Check out Yng for an awesome post on expectancy/profit ratios. For me, I've never had tight stop losses. Perhaps this is why my account can fluctuate 1K in unrealized gains and losses without me even making a big deal about it. My positions are big, and I try to avoid letting the micro movements spook me. At the same time, I'm always on the lookout for breakouts when i'm short and landslides when i'm long. This, you see, is why I exited CRDC at it's peak. It fell. I was wrong. It happens. Move on.

-Take any green you get.
-Don't worry about having a great track record in picking stocks, your net worth is what speaks on your behalf. This means exiting when things turn sour, and staying in liquid stocks.

Also, PLA(Playboy Enterprises) is the latest no news pump! Long or short depending on the attention it gets. Guessing it'll be big w/ the corp being so well known.

GKK is on a two day run up. Third times the charm. Short after.

CVI. Charts do not get more predictable than this. It has no reason for this pump! Wouldn't we all love for our companies to rise 68% in worth in one day?

"Buy into the rumor, sell on the news"

That quote is just one of the many things I've picked up about trading, yet never verbalized. I intend on writing my notes about stocks down in post very soon. I also hope to do a post specifically on finding the stocks I trade. I've got an arsenal of sites to check- just click down my blog roll on the right side of this page, but I find my own stocks just in case. For example, I found FRZ on the first day of the run up on 10/22/08. I said I'd play short or long based on morning action and indeed, the run was not finished on 10/23. Nevertheless, be on the lookout for these posts.

Next, there is absolutely no way you can expect that I not traded this past week I haven't posted in. Yes, I did have two midterms, but I've been trading plenty.

First was my CRDC short. I took the hit at the top of its bounce and covered. It was my mental stop price and I just followed my rules expecting it to continue the rally. If you've check recently, It hit 5.75 recently. My short was from 6.72. Could have been a nice 1k profits, but I've learned that thinking about what you could have done in the stock market is the biggest waste of time.

I took the hit in my account, and set my eyes on TRE and soon LVLT. I bought TRE on Friday on a vol spike. It had a multi-day run down, and I didn't mind holding o/w(over weekend) on it. After all, only a mining company. Funny thing is, i've been buying and selling stocks very often without checking what the company is even about. My technical analysis is getting better and better the more time I chart with moving averages on TOS. Like my buddy Gio said, 10/60 and 20/50 is really where many traders make their decisions. For me, its an instant way to tell where the market is heading. I have also been admiring how eloquently as a whole the market makers will time buy/sell volume spikes so that EOD buy-ups and sell-offs can happen in accordance with the 10/60 sinusoidal pattern.

Anyway, TRE was played long and again I took a hit on this one. It went my way immediately, almost breaking 2.0 from my 1.91 entry, but since it didn't hit my price, I held. Eventually I couldn't take the pain at 1.70 thinking that shorts would force it lower so I got out. My account was below 6k for the first time in perhaps a month. Simultaneosly I bought into LVLT at close friday hoping to get in on this breakdown rally. When stocks fall this quickly, its very easy for the momentum to overshoot the true price of the stock. For that reason, I bought into EOD momentum and closed Friday with a loss, but if you saw it almost take out 1.40 today, you know why I reloaded EOD at 1.20 with more shares. This ticker is a good prospect for me. Big thanks to Laura, chat goddess of GOTS, for the alert late Friday.

The end of CRDC and my newfound Confidence.

I exited CRDC yesterday and took a hefty loss. It was actually during a midday boom. Though I commented on the sinusoidal pattern and could have guessed that it would eventually collapse, I was following my mental stop that I set at 7.30. As it approached my mental stop it was picking up vol and was looking bullish. I want to follow my rules so I took the exit even if its for a loss.

Its strange, however, this loss has given me confidence. Today, CRDC gapped down and never met 7$ again. More than ever, I am understanding price and volume movements, and really using sector stocks, DJI, and moving averages. One thing I noticed from reading blogs like Yng and DV, is that while i've learned these general skills that I can use on all kinds of stocks, I haven't really been picking up on single stock patterns. You know, things like how ABK(one of my most talked about tickers) reacts after gapping up, or what failed 10/60 crosses do for it. Yng recently made an awesome gap up play with TMA. Definitely what I call easy money. Its these kinds of patterns i'm going to try to start noticing.

FRZ is my short watch tommorw. Volume is there, and its been hovering in this price range since early Oct. Just bouncing up and down in the 1-3$ range. Of course, if this run isn't over, I'll go long too.

NKTR- has a lovely multiday run and check out today chart. Solid "sideways action"

Greed.

CRDC was just frustrating today. When the BID falls to 6.33 but you can't exit becuase the ASK is still 6.99 you start to realize just how manipulated some of these stocks are. I don't know who is behind it, and I could list all sorts of conspiracy theorys about how this pump happened, but I probably still would not nail just how low manipulators are willing to go. If you're not convinced, read TIMS post on a real life stock manipulator


I noticed that CRDC is very sinusoidal relative to 60 day MA so i wasn't THAT worried when it tried to break 7.10. I told dhous i'd cover in the crash. Greed got the best of me. Only a 110$ gain and i've been holding this stock for over 5 days? No way, I wanted more. Thats why I held, even when my trade was green, and thats why i'm stuck here at the 7.07 close!

I'm making a promise now, because this stock is no longer worth my time or capital. The net dip, ,no matter whether I'm green or red, and i'm out. I could have played TMA, ABK, or RDN if I just had some capital today.

I'm really not dissapointed in myself, becuase my reserach tells me itshould be going down. But i've learned from this experience that illiquid stocks are not worth the huge bid/ask spread, and multi-cent lunges in price they take. Further, like i said before, something is up with this stock. Just look at the volume spikes. The daily shares traded is not much at all, so when the volume spikes, the market maker is the one moving in my opinion. One last reason I think this stock is up to no good is becuase the bid/asks are always teasing investors. Often, they don't surround the LAST. Imo, market makers are just testing the people in the trade to cave in and surrender their money in the extreme squeezes and sell-offs that keep happening- thus the sinusoidal leading line around the lagging line.

But honestly, no one should trust sell-offs and booms in illiquid stocks! This thing is definitely long run RED. I just don't have that much time.

A bittersweet EOweek

I'm going to cancel posting the positions traded up here. I've decided to start keeping an excel spreadsheet with these stats so I can get percent stats much quicker. Since I'm trying to use my trading as part of my resume for getting trading internships/jobs, i'll need to start keeping track of these numbers.

I was way to eager to trade after Wednesday. My account was at an all time high, and I had two day trades left for the week. I forced trades for the rest of the week. Tried to reshort PNX and got a quick lesson that it wasn't ready to break 5. I held an o/n on RAMR out of desperation to trade. Luckily I didn't not go bankrupt on this trade. I don't know what i was thinking. RAMR!! A 1$ stock with no volume! I could have taken a big hit of someone decided to do some manipulating. I started early Friday with CRDC. I shorted off the top and saw some nice pitfalls. But the spread on this stock is horrible and again, I saw how ugly low vol stocks are for small accounts. Muddy was able to take it when it begged to break 7. I was even willing to give up a hard earned 400 more on my short before I called it quits. I've really gotten a feel for movements in price and resistance. My EOD fade that i told dhous and Andromeda about came through just like I said. I think the downside will come Monday since it didn't crack 7 on friday. Not to mention, there was the DJI fade Friday.


I'm proud of how I stuck through the losses on CRDC Friday. I saw my target exit and when things didn't go my way though I considered covering for a loss. I checked my reasons for entering and saw that this junk company had not yet delivered on rumors from sept. 11. A buy offer is not up for discussion, and from bid/ask it looked like the market movers were just begging people to raise the price. IMO, theres some manipulation in this stock. They didn't get me to fall for it. Of course, this could all change monday. I do real-time analysis on price/volume and sectors. I need charts, and I need to get a feel for the moving averages. My biases call on CRDC is way down. What will happen monday is what I will react to.

This is my first weekend hold. As dhous reminded me EOD, at least we saved a day trade! Now for a picture.



I entered pre 10/60 cross #2 of the day. Saw some quick quick money, and wanted more. I held through the squeeze that turned into a solid attempt at 7. Decided that it was a good fakeout by some shady market makers. Saw confirmation when the huge red drop happened at the red circle. Decided the EOD sell off wasn't enough the second time it happened either. I'm confident about monday.

P.S. Covester is really being strange recently. It seems like the percent gains are always wrong, but I know they have the right information on my trades. Noob just made the Covester rankings list making me really hopeful that they may add me as well. I emailed Blain Reinkensmeyer about being added to the rankings to help my resume, but I have to have two months experience. Fortunately, they will calculate my Sharpe Ratio for me on the 24th so I will be able to place myself in the rankings unofficially. I'll be sure to post here when I find out.

My new oversleeping story and the end of PMI

Positions traded:

PMI o/n long @ 2.14, close @ 2.57

+$730.57

$6932.48

I woke up late for the market today. Well, considering I went to bed around 5AM, I should have seen this coming, but my wake-up was a great place to see the chart action. Had I been awake at open I might have been spooked by the quick small sell off. I've seen this happen too often. Especially after my RAMR o/n long a few weeks ago. After checking my Itouch in bed to find the Google finance(delayed) quote, I casually rolled out of bed to see my account steadily over $6900! When I when to bed, I was in $6500. The euphoria quickly settled into concentration. I was very calm and reasoned through my options. I was expecting a gap up, but quickly saw that ABK,DSL, XLF, and FRE/FNM had all fallen at open. VERY STRANGE. I always check related stocks for guidance on entering and exiting. Thats when I realized I didn't care what the 10/60 was doing. I saw it testing 2.58 and set my sell limit at 2.57. I was out with a solid profit, and had made my second biggest gain just minutes after rolling out of bed still not having showered or brushed my teeth. It was a great feeling. For the rest of the day, I curiously watched it and found out that PMI had maintained a great credit rating in the recent mess. This, i'm sure, was why we didn't see it sell off at open.

Nonetheless, I now have an awesome story about oversleeping with my o/n position in the gutter of the market. Hooray.

Resiliance with PMI

Positions traded

o/n long on PMI @ 2.14 1700 shares.

closed at 2.33

I saw PMI at 2.12 about when I rolled out of bed around noon. Having missed the morning of trading and the morning GOTS chatroom I was not planning on trading. However, the setup was great. After a huge gap up, the market covered and shorts joined the quick morning sell off. It was just stabilizing in low 2 teens and I saw that the 10/60 was set up for a rest of day uptrend. I pulled the trigger very instinctively and felt good about having done so. I got my fill at 2.14. After little action all day, I knew EOD would decide my fate. It looked like shorts had yet to cover so I wanted a squeeze. Imo, this is exactly what we saw EOD--though, DJI & XLF had great EOD breakouts as well. P/L YTD is around 192$ and P/L day is @ $305. I have highest yet unrealized gains for my account, but of course, they are not mine untill I make a closing trade.

I look forward to tommorrow.

Friday's trade. A bad start to a great weekend.

Positions traded
PMI long 2K shares @ 1.91, sold at 1.86.

-$112.99

$6221.89



I really shouldn't have traded Friday. Especially after I realized the potential for each trading day should not be measured by the number of day trades I have. I went long on PMI. Why? honestly I spent the morning scolding myself for not pulling the trigger on trades fast enough. So when I saw a nice 10/60 cross on PMI I went in. I went in 2k shares. In other news, on both of my trades last week I lost $112 and some change.

Interesting convo with Yash on the way back from ATL today. He proposed a negative rate on the part of the FED, as a possible solution. Very interesting and something I would not have considered. Of course, its ironic that I read an article that said the NYC debt clock would need to have additional digits added after it maxed out.

This is going to be a good week in terms of time set aside for trading.

Rate Cut

Worldwide cuts in the Rate were supposed to save us from our second crisis of the year. The mortgage crisis was the cause of the lending crisis, but nonetheless, this is what REALLY shook up the American problems into something that went worldwide. A global initiative cut rates by 50 basis points in about 8 countries, but remember, this isn't to encourage consumers to spend. It is really to encourage banks to borrow and provide lending liquidity. Inflation is still around and we are deeply in a recession.

This, folks, is the dreaded stagflation.

It DOES matter that the vast majority of American's won't realize whats going on. But who cares right? If you don't understand it now, your children will explain this entire crisis starting from the 1980's through now to you when they take ECON and HIST courses in the future.

In the meantime, we(average Joe's) will all whine and moan about our shriveling nest eggs saying "This is ridiculous." just about every other line in our highly intellectual and researched soliloquies on the current state of the economy.

What a terrible trade today

Positions traded:

GGC
Short 1500 shares @ 2.82, cover at 2.90
$-112.76

$6340.43

I came into the day knowing I made a shitload last week and that after a huge Monday drop the markets would be very testy. Sure enough the FED responded by writing a plan to buy up short term debt and offering rate cuts. Honestly, rate cuts a while back might have helped the credit freeze we are in. How else were the markets to remain liquid with so many failures?

So... what did I trade. I played GGC today.GGC was a huge supernova. It went from 2.12 to 3.25 almost uninterrupted. I wanted a piece of this easy money so badly. Of course, with easy money in a stock like this comes lots of manipulation. A stock that moves like this on 0 news has shady traders involved. Slotmonkey in the chat room was talking about his position and then gave an "OK" to short. I foolishly listened. After missing the short above 3, I chased down to the 2.80's. I got a fill at 2.82 and it didn't even come back near it for the rest of the time I was in. It was between 2.84 and 2.88 for a good bit then it hit 2.90. The chart looked like it could rally off the dip and I didn't see this action to be squeezing so I made my exit for a loss. My exit was not a problem. The fact that I entered this trade was.

Really, the potential for a trading day should not be measured by the number of DAY TRADES I HAVE!!!! This is something I need to fix. Also, I need to stop watching Net Liq on my trades. I forbid myself from doing either of these from now on.

today was horrible. DJI was not moving with the penny financials and I really just rushed this entry.

On the economy as a whole, I can't call it, I can only react. Shorting bans are to expire soon. The FED & SEC will make their decisions and I, as an unofficial daytrader, will have to comply and react. I do want to make it clear while Wall Street was unregulated in this crisis, no one has the guts to blame the Americans who bought mortgages they knew they couldn't afford. Should not they be regulated as well? Just something to think about all of you that are throwing the blame around out there.

Saturday Notes

Interesting read on BeatTheMkt's Covester account.


If someone is going to teach you to trade, or you are going to invest in their fund, they should know the answers to these questions.

1) What is the accuracy of profitable trades for the system?
2) What is the average profit per trade for the system?
3) What is the average loss per trade for the system?
4) What is the average, largest drawdown in a win or loss?
5) What is the most consecutive wins and losses?
6) Can two people interpet the methods differently?

I've read a lot about hedge funds, and I have never heard of this being discussed. Granted I don't have a few million to throw into a fund, and these are all serious investor related questions, with hedge funds collapsing like Amy Winehouse after every overdosed stage performace, these are important statistics!

I've had huge gains since I started trading about one month ago. I need to digest it and not become one of the 90% of traders that lose money. When I spoke with one of my serious trading partners, Ben, yesterday he advised that I sit out of trading to digest my gains. My gains recently have been very very large in terms of percentages and getting cocky in these markets... well... you can easily be humbled. For my niche, there's an extent of luck in each trade. Its very volatile, its dangerous. You stand to lose it all. Being up 32%, is a big deal. I'm more cautious about losing gains than principal, so you can bet this little hobby of mine has become that much more serious.

This summer, I used to read all of Timothy Sykes's testimonials and just imagine the numbers and figures he'd throw around. People would make $200,$500, $1000 plus everyday. It's hard to digest that I've become one of those people.

COVESTOR NOTES

I just wanted to clarify some notes on my covestor account. The covestor account shows %returns from an initial account valued at $4736.99. The returns, therefore, are skewed. My actual starting account size is $4900.

BKUNA!

Positions traded:

BKUNA
long at 1.02, sell at 1.25
+$350

$6473.11


Awesome trade with BKUNA today. I've been hard on myself when I execute bad trades, so you can bet I'll point out why BKUNA was very well played.

I got out of a morning exam at 9:29 AM this morning. Like Laura told me, waiting until 10:30 before entering a position is a good way to get a feel for how things are moving. Plus, in my opinion, you've got a good bit of chart action that can help you for some technical analysis. Before entering BKUNA, I checked out the VIX(fear index) and DJI. I noticed DJI was ~ to penny financials for the day. When you see this early in the morning. Definitely exploit it for the day. I saw a DJI spike while BKUNA was flat lining at 1.02. despit having a solid run in the first hour of trading, all of the signs were there and the DJI just did a nice angled 10/60 cross. I pulled the the trigger. I was quickly 1500 shares in. I checked out if the GOTS chatters were interested in shorting. Terri quickly pointed out it was on the short ban list. ALL SYSTEMS GO. I was now confident enough to walk away and go pickup my new speaker system. I returned to find the stock where I left it... trying to break resistance at 1.10. The DJI was still channeling upwards so I held. I saw the lagging line(I don't know if everyone calls the 60 day MA line a lagging line, but thats what i'll call it. The 10 day MA is the leading line) reaching a peak and considered exiting. I had a solid $150, but the bailout was just hours away. I held. It fell. I got nervous. I reminded myself of all the signs, and continued. As the bailout grew closer and closer it shot up. I didn't even realize it at the time, but this was a $ stock! It was breaking key price points at a very high rate. I'll need to pay more attention next time. The percentage gains were huge. I finally realized around 1.27 as my account broke $6500 in net liquidity. The fact that I realized this at the time is a good sign in retrospect. I really am learning when to exit! After i exited at 1.25 right before the bailout vote was finalized the stock shot to 1.29 and then fell slowly but surely. I had a great exit!

Size of position was a modest bet, but seeing as all of the good signs were there I easily should have done double my position.

One thing I did not do correctly was place the sell limit at the right price. The LAST was showing 1.27 but i put a sell limit at 1.25 since this was the ASK price and thus lost an easy $30.

This is something to improve upon, though i'm very happy with my trade.

August/September in Review

Yng has a nice habit of posting his monthly stats up and I think it would really help my trading If I could pinpoint costs, bad habits, and highlight good trades. So... I will do my best to recount what the months of August/September were like in terms of trading my account.

August was my breakout month. It wasn't very eventful.

August:

Starting account value: $4900
Ending account value: $4855.61
Total loss: $44.39
Total loss (%): 0.9%

Total commissions paid: $30.03

Total # trades: 2
Total # winning trades: 1
Total # losing trades: 1

Positions held long: 0
Positions held short:2

Largest winning trade: $1
Largest losing trade: $-59.40

Total # trading days: 1
# green days on account: 0
# red days on account: 1

September:

Starting account value: $4855.61
Ending account value: $6147.64
Total gain: $1292.03
Total gain (%): 26.6%

Average daily return: 0.887%
Average daily P/L: $43.07
Total commissions paid: $376.17
YTD commissions paid:$406.20

Largest winning trade: $992.40
Largest losing trade: $-146.88


I hit some lows during September that you don't see in the above statistics. It was tough. At its lowest point I was down nearly $300 to $4629.94. My trades on RAMR and SIL helped bring me well out of the red.

Bloomberg

I don't know why I didn't go earlier to check out the Bloomberg Terminal at Park Library in Carroll. This thing was sweet. I don't see it being of huge use to a pennystocker, like myself, but seeing the big firms that had huge holdings on the stocks i've traded was just the beginning of what this machine has to offer. I was getting a news feed just like ticks on a stockprice on the news page. Tons of gossip, spam, and perhaps a bit of honest truth just flying across the pages while also getting the MOST real-time stock prices I can get at the moment. TOS doesn't have shit on Bloomberg.

Of course, I have no idea how to use the damn thing when I get there. Sitting in front of it and marveling at the fact that I get to use two screens for trading is enough for me. The student librarians didn't even know what it was. So... I got to talking to the 60 year old librarian who knew more than what it was called. I think the lady thought it was funny when I asked her if anyone even used it. According to her, "we have a full class on business journalism." Fantastic! They pay 2k a month so all the kids can gather around 1 terminal and see news scroll across the screen faster than methed up bunnies multiply. In any case, I'm not complaining. I think i've found my on campus trading hub. There are computers, the library is very nicely lit, computers, journalism majors, and a fucking Bloomberg machine. The only thing missing is a live CNBC stream.

If the senate knows whats good for them, and they should after monday, the bailout should be passed on this evening for a $DJI rebound on the 'morry.

No trading today. Maybe not for the rest of the week

I hate politics. Its one of the reasons I never meddled deeply into forex and I vowed not to become too involved with the campaigning thats been going on. Unfortunately, Cameron reads CNN politics like I read the NYT Business page. He alerted me to Mccain's attempt to cancel his debate, and the ugly interview Palin had with Couric, the rest of which is online now. I ended up watching the entire thing and quickly realized just how important it will be for Obama to win this election. I won't rant on Mccain/Palin. In my opinion, they make it way too easy to.

Also, I love my covestor chart for black monday. Btw, shouldn't we come up with a term thats darker than black to describe mondays. Seriously, we've had 2 in the past month, this is getting old.

Last bit. Check out this cool article highlighting the job of specialists in the markets. Specialists have the unpleasant job of being buyers in a bear market, or like monday... a huge sell off. Pretty neat how the internet and information exchange has allowed so many more players to enter the market that sell offs like this can even occur. Think about when there wasn't a live video feed to congressional votings before traders reacted. According to the article we could have seen a 1000+ point drop.

Main street learns about wall street.

There have been so many distinctions made between main street and wall street in the media that is sickens me. Its just the blame game. I expect it from those damned nay-voters on yesterday's bill... face it.... they're probably political "scientists" anyway. I told Will in my lab, the sad thing is, most Americans won't realize this crisis has very relevant causes from how they spent their money in the past. He agreed, and we agreed that this Bill had to be passed. My macro professor, Zubeyir Kilinc, also said it had to be passed. I couldn't help but smile when he told the class that papers, books, and dissertations will be written on what happened yesterday--something I've been telling everyone for the past few weeks. I also loved it when I asked him how people finance houses in Turkey to which he replied: "we save up for 20 years." This is exactly what my dad did! Look at what a little bit of skepticism did for my dad. He doesn't buy on leverage. He buys with money he has, and is therefore hardly affected by this mess. Sure he'll have to pay for this, but we all are.

Side notes. Bingham(Uk's FRE/FNM) was sold to govt yesterday. Spain's Fortis bank shut down. Credit rates rocket again b/c of intrabank lending fears. I realized yesterday just how much the market is hype after the bill failed in the House. We created this bill. We publiziced as our savior. Thus when it fails, regardless of wheter it will work or not the dow plunges 777. Think of it this way, if the bill was never written or spoken of, would the dow had fallen 777 points yesterday? Doubtful.


No picks or watches for me for a bit. I've got a wounded leg to take care of, and midterms/quizzes to read for.

Why the DOW fell 777(too bad it wasn't 666) points and I made money today!

I made money because I haven't taken risks with popular stocks this whole time! Why mess with them when there is plenty of money to be made in my niche alone

Plenty to be said about today, but I had a horrible bike crash and I'll leave it at the positions traded

SIL short 1500 shares at 2.18 cover at 2.10

+100

$6147.64

I hope I don't get stitches tomorrow.

Nirav strikes again

2:12 AM-Bailout announced! Just finished calling it in my post about 30mins ago.

READ UP yo'self

i hate...

it when people degrade internet slang into "wut" "tat" "iz" "dat" Come on people, we're looking to shorten the amount of typing we do, not butcher the english language to make it sound like we're all podunk second graders, son of klansmen, from mississippi. YEE HAW!

anyway

Trades

Thursday
Covered o/n short on SIL @ 2.59
+607.42

Friday
re-entered SIL short at 2.28 and covered right before close at 2.41
-$147.00

6047.58


I still need to be grounded from my gain. I have a day trade but don't plan on using it untill Tuesday. Plenty of potential with the bailout news for monday. My beloved penny financials, and a few nice risers like HYDG that the GOTS crew has my back on.

There has really been some interesting plays to mention from this week. I've seen stock tank and break-out in very irregular patterns.

CEG had an epic fade from the $60's to $14

TGIC had a huge interday spike

NCC had 300% EOD on friday.

What does this? .....liquidity, lies, rumors, but most of all perception. I told Lawerence, the market hardly reacts as we expect. It's all about perception. The funniest example being AAPL's iPod and iTouch release day. Nobody cared about the new products... everyone wanted to see if Steve Jobs looked like he was going to die soon. Had he not worn thigh and chest implants the stock mighted had the GOTS guys cheering "TIMBERRRRRR". j/k about the implants, he was fine... well, at least according to the CNBC reporter that specializes in assesing CEO health at press confrences. I think that this is just the beginning too. Something is up. How can a stock have 30-40% interday swings 3-4 days a week? This is insane and far from over. I don't see an end to these swings simply becuase everyone fails to mention them. Of course, as everyone knows, efficient markets eliminate easy profit strategies over time, and this may be exactly why no one talks about it. Though, we've seen 5 big guns (count them FRE,FNM,LEH,(sorry LEHMQ), AIG, AND WM) all fall to become pennystocks. Too bad everyone fails to admit just how serious this is to the amerian public which is why pennystocks will continue to pwn joo noobs @ teh soaring and sinking the way they do.

As I told ben in a quick email today. FRE/FNM should open up to news of the bailout certain to occur tommorw(....or tonight rather) evening. Who would of called that the entire U.S. market could collapse due to a crisis in a single investment sector? oh yea... i did. This is all surreal, nonetheless. The extent of which it has happened has been played up by the media as almost unexpected. I guess I should do like I did before, forget the media, read my own history books of the market and come to my own conclusions. That being said, the potential to invest in Asian markets is huge. Seriously, just in terms of business imerging in weak financial markets. As indos and chinese start being able to afford the goods that us in the west have been basking in for years, supply will find its way to the demand. Business men will build their business. High fashion in India has yet to come, superstores are beginning to make their way, the online shopping potential hasn't even been tapped. When I went last xmas, I remember how shocked me and my dad were when we were at a hotel(restaurant) and the punjabi's next to us whipped out a birthday cake with candles during dinner. this was a first! people don't have TIME to do this in India. Work in the fields, or work in a cubicle picking up phones... this is what its been for indo's up till now. It shows, they aren't spending their time working. They have time to spare to celebrate and relax, and more importantly, they ahve the money! This was a moderately nice hotel too. moving on, in india, with products like the TATA nano being unveiled, an entire new class of people in India are going to be buying cars!And you can bet their ass'es are going to want to roll further than down the street than to eat some samosas, and mango chutney. They're going to want to travel, go on vacation and indulge. Jim Rogers said "If you were smart in 1807 you moved to London, if you were smart in 1907 you moved to New York City, and if you are smart in 2007 you move to Asia." Look at all of the worthless public companies in America. Why can't asia have them too??? This is huge. During dot-com, IPO's shot through the roof regularly. Tripling, doubling...fuck, there was no use for techinical analysis. Just follow the crowd. These companies are going to want to follow the capitlistic model and join the free market. Plus, its a nice accomplishment to be public. So let the IPO's happen. Let each company have it little bit of publicly traded glory. LET THE PRICE and VOLUME ROCKET. Thats exactly what traders want. As long as there is volatility and liquidity there is money to be made! Someone(i forget who) also made the point that up and coming nations have the benefit of learning from our mistakes. Well, now the whole world knows just how risky mortgages backed securities are. We should get a fucking award for the amount by which we help others by showing them exactly how to screw your entire economy.

Like I quoted Cramer last time, "there's always a bull market somewhere." But I say, who says the bull market has to be found in America? Or even the west for that matter.

Roar.

Nirav: Forget accounting, I'll just fudge the numbers(yes that's from the office)
Pre-med noob:OMG orgo!!! barf!!!!!!!


Get over it preemies, your major is imaginary, plus chances are.... you won't get into medschool.

Yea Yea, but i have greatness on my side. :)

Muchose picksones.

HYDG- short it

JPM-sell off becuase shares liquidating to raise capital??

WM- buyback from the AM fail.


In other news. My account needs to get corrected by the market before I go around spreading my trading prowess to so many people. I can't let this get to my head. I should instead focus on good trades.

Remember.... 3 keys to this:

size of position, when to enter and where to leave

greenage!

Positions Traded

LEH
long at .149 sell at .174
+171.2
SIL
short at 3.61 cover at 3.2388
+371.22
o/n short at 3.24
5641.35


Very good day. Definitely find a feel for the market. Can't wait for more trades and finding good o/n's with low risk has been very easy as well. Unfortunately, if you saw LEHMQ today, you'd know my exit was too early, but I put a mental stop at .17 and I will not complain about picking up an extra 170$ without burning a day tradeZ!

As an aside on my ongoing amazement by the markets. Bush just gave a 15 minute rundown on why the 700bn mortgage bailout must occur. People don't realize that the scope of the bad mortgages is way way more than 700bn. 7 trillion to be exact. We aren't even 5% of this. I'm not saying we should, but if this doesn't bailout, credit rates will rocket... on that note maybe congress should not pass this just so americans realize how bad buying on leverage is. Many americans will never even realize that this is the reason the banks failed to being with. BTW, GS and MOR downgrading to commercial banks is just enough failure for me.


No trades left for tommorw, will be looking to close my o/n on SIL. Based on the hearing we should see how stocks react. Plenty of opportunties in this market. Like cramer says, theres always a bull market somehwhere.

Anyone with trades should look to scalp off the very nice DSL run that has continued passed the shorting ban. Ironically enough, most penny financials, which I list almost every post(see below), have fallen. ABK is one of the worst. Based on movement tommorw I could buyin long.

Also, must mention the incredible FRE,FNM moves. Continuous upticks since talk of a bailout occured. Remember the system is never wrong. The bailout will happen, and these will rocket even more.

In all honesty, Just check out GOTS chat tommorw. Best momentum alerts there. Today alone, ERII and SIL would have you well in the green.

Will someone go ahead and say we are in a recession?

stock Pickage

No new picks.

Fin's are testy and I'm not sure when to take my long position. I've heard a theory that once the 700bn bailout details are approved we'll see a comeback. I definitely want to go long on these before that happens.

I'll split the funds over some of the once I saw move the most last time--ABK,RDN,RAMR,DSL,FMD, and PMI

As for short picks. Timmy just released a 17 stock list of shortables. Lots of good ideas here and lots of big %tage gains in minimal time. Yes, the shorting rule has no effect on this list, and many other companies... like Jamba Juice... which rolls in penny filth every day. Look at it. Sitting pretty at 1.00. Just useless.

You can take away shorting financials... but they will still fall. Let that be a lesson to the SEC.

Yng has a nice post on 10/60 cross using Financial ETF's. Take a look at the Pennystock Financials i listed above and compare them to the ETF charts. They are mirror images!

get that green.

read this

READ THIS

``They're going to have to protect their deposit bases by law, and the days of high leverage are gone,'' said Charles Geisst, a finance professor at Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York, who wrote ``Wall Street: A History.'' ``The days of the big bonuses are gone.''

Today really does mark the end of an era. An era when you could borrow 25$ for every 1$ you owned and repeat this process for every dollar your earned. An era where wall streets financial engine was a series of Ibanks with exec's and partners making multi million dollar bonuses from leveraged money. Its the end to the over the top greed that swept through Ibankers everywhere.... cue the hedgefunds!

Who the care's about salaries, the fact that the powerhouses of wall street are now completely gone is the more relevant point. All in all, I was right. Leverage did this to these ibanks. In theory it worked beautifully, but even high-schoolers know that buying things with money you don't have is dangerous. Further, who in their right mind would have leverage ratios of 25-1????? The banks ate it hard this year for the years of leverage they used.

I'm still in awe. I thought these giants were full proof this summer. I thought Goldman was god. Let this be a lesson in how dangerous leverage is. For me, my father taught me this long before any economist did. Regulation is needed, and it is very funny that the CNBC reporters and Goldman officals are now asking for those regulations. Last week, we thought the government was interferring too much, now we've realized they're just being the parents to reckless teens. Of course they have the oversight to have stopped this to begin with, but if they put a damper on private banks when they were getting of their feet, liquidity, money markets, and securities would be all be responsibilities of the government and commercial banks. Who knows, since that is how it is now, things will turn out for the better!

The glass steagal act was supposed to separate the men from the boys, the risk takers from the conservative players. The comerical banks slowly matured to handle crisis very well, but the ibanks had no defense, and this was only amplified by leveraged bets.

Anyone who is winning in the market just hasn't been around long enough, today was the last day for ibanks.

What a market correction!

p.s. taxpayers are paying for this. Score!

quick recap of Friday's trading.

This was by far the most hyped up day I've traded. CNBC was talking about all of the govt deal. Injecting money to the global economy through central banks, banning shorting on 799 financials(which by the way had many irrelavent companies on the list by mistake), and the continued ban on naked shorting. Dow futures rocketed. Seriously, these CNBC reporters, were merry... As was I, I was sitting on 1k profits on my o/n RAMR position. Only a 1.5K position and 66 percentage gain! What an idiot I was to only take half of my take. I should have easily kept it. Instead, i started asking the GOTS room for help. I sold half of my keep.

Ring the bell. I saw a huge paradox in numbers. Fin's tank, $DJI rockets. Seriously, 5 minutes into the day and were in the 11400's of the $DJI. I know whats coming, a sharp selloff, and a sharp buy back. What i didn't realize was that this would happen more than 4 times. DSL was my pick for buying off the sell off. I saw a return to 3$ and 2.94 was a great entry. Of course, I entered to quick in the morning volatitliy and got spooked with my chart staring when it was in the 2.70's. I wanted to keep my gains from ramr, so I took a 200$ loss and moved on.

Que DSL again. I began trying to enter at 2.70's. Volatility had faded and I saw a 10/60 cross. Got my fill at 2.89 and then came a long hold while also watching my RAMR position.

I walked away, saw probably 5300 in my account a few times but greedily held.

EOD buy up didn't come, and I had held to long. I started wanting to take my profit. Boom out DSL at 3.07 for a cool 200$ back and closed my RAMR in the 1.90's for another $150

My account sits at $5113. I am finally green, made back my 300$ loss, and broke 5000 all in one series of trades.

I should scold myself on using 2 day trades. I was too eager, and should've remembered this will cost me next week. I am more confident on o/n positions now, so perhaps I will play those.

I should mention the RAMR pick is completely luck. The news hype from the govt help is what gave me that 66% gain. Nonetheless, be on the lookout for more news, and more failures. This problem is far from over. Banks like GS and MS should have leverage ratios of 20's to 1. Other firms should not. I posted specifially on leverage before any of this happened in the summer. Credit cards became a habbit, money was injected into the market at incredible rates b/c of the high price of homes, wall street joined, defaults happened, completely fucked....we are done being yet.

A niceeee.

Tommorw is a promising day.

My short picks for today were all over the place. I've learned I need to do fewer and more researched picks. Today I was scrambling at open to check all of my picks. I ended up playing something off my old list.... RAMR!

Thats right i'm in o/n on RAMR. After a long aftermarket convo w/ Yngvai I saw how great of a buyin it really was. Looking at the chart using 10/60 moving averages, I bought in right where a crucial cross happened on the RAMR, VIX, and DJI charts. I'm up 20%, and depending on how many more close their shorts and what rules/rumors surface on banning shorting, I could be in for much more price action. We shall see.

I'm going to list all of the financials that are def in play if the aforementioned occurs:
ABK,RDN,RHD,DSL,FMD,PMI,TGIC, RAMR

These alone ALWAYS provide plenty of scalping potential so most of my day will be focused on them. They are all up and down on the % gainers list. Be sure to save todays list to reference tommorw. This a market approved pick list people!

I've got 3 day trades tommorw, and DJI gained over 400 point after yesterday's tank. We're back above 11K point on the index and confindence may be returning as the fed moves to spend up to 1/2 a trillion on saving the mortgage market.


Tommorw will be a good day!

9/18/2008

AIG bailout does zero for confidence. .DJI does another 400+ point drop but Gold rallies. BIG TIME. Todays % gainers list is filled with mining companies reaping in the Gold hype.

NYT IPO alert

FLDM is going public tommorw. This Lehman brothers venture capital group find has it's big public offering in the worst week of 2008. Shares will struggle to maintain value and shorting might be better. Remember this isn't the dot com boom. Right now, you're played for what you are worth and more often less than that.


YESTERDAYS PICKS

Airlines were definitely in play today! DAL, UAUA, LCC etc. Down big on rising crude oil. I'm liking the inverse relationship.

RAMR, TGIC, and RDN had good intraday movements. Of course, yours truly sat on the sidelines.

VLNC- A pick by timothy sykes, and was well talked about in the GOTS chat room. Didn't hit the action we'd all like, but I doubt this is done.

FBR- Also not triggered. Tommorw is another day.

FOR THE NEXT DAY

*These are from dark's blog*

RODM- has the scary shart I hope to hardly see on stocks. Its on a Bellweather in Play report. Thats about it

AKNS- No news pump. My kinda play.

CNEH- No news pump.

ANPI- nice last few minutes surge in price. Not worth the day trade, but i'll note the chart and add it to my inventory of patterns.

XRA- Lovely no news pump. I hope it falls just as beautifully

XRIT- Nice sideways after NNP on this stock. FALL please. :)

ERHE- A true penny stock pump. I'll keep the name and reserve shares. It might be time for me to reap the huge %tage movements of a true pennystock!


On another note. Tommorw will be spent with more time spent watching charts and GOTS. The chat room is a great source of CNBC news and I'd like to spend the day with it of as much as possible.

My usual- RDN, ABK,RAMR, SCA,DSL, FMD are always in play too!!!

SCA, TGIC and RAMR are all 1$ plays!!! talk about good positions! Luckily, i'm rooting for a rebound on these steady financials. Don't let overwhelming financial turmoil spread fog over the good companies out there. Now is the time to find good buy in's on these!

Todays trades + tommorw

What a day. Black monday followed by turmoil over AIG's fate + sinking Ibanks + release of FFrate.

FFR- unchanged at 2.00

AIG- post market chat of bailout but very volatile day + a missed entry and exit of about 500. Should have followed MUDDY and the chatroom! He makes money all the time.

Sinking Ibanks recovering after US approves AIG bridge loan + those earnings that were never factored into stock price.

Crazy day, and still I am upset that I am not serious about day trading enough to maintain this blog and wake up for the market.


PICKS FOR TOMMORW.

Darkside

MER + AIG having good intraday action. Buying off lows and selling off highs is the way to go here. While everyone worries about the fate.... scalps on these extremely liquid stocks mean huge %tage movements!

NWA, DAL, LCC, UAUA....Airlines are rallying of lower gas. Could this be their comeback? They have been very undervalued admist soaring oil prices. A buyin long might be inorder!

NoNewsPumps
VLNC- loving this chart
FBR- strange EOD spike.

thats plenty more than I have the charting capacity to watch.

Remember, we're not in a recession... i kid i kid.

Stocks

LEH- If i had a day trade, i'd definetly short. I'm considering putting my worth in this one and shorting, but the reserved part of me won't let it happen. I know this Titanic is going to sink, but I'm not one to hit a home run at the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded. If i miss, the outcome could be very bad for my continuing education i nthe market. I think i'll put up to half of my worth in this short tommorw morning after the short squeeze. DONE.

some macro-market things to mention

Morgan and Goldman earnings out this week. BIG news for the banking hype type people out there.

WALK- Nice pump on this one. No news. Welcome to my kinda play. 5's

SSN-not your social security number, but my average type of short. Mid 1's

haha, I compile this list by finding a stock and writing it up chronologically. I should just list the pumps in one section

ANO- same as the two above. Mid'1s

PAL-pump, 3

WGW-pump, mid 1's

RDN and financials alway welcome. Again i'd watch this with my one hour no trade policy.
SCA,ABK,DSL,FMD

RAMR- Same one hour no trade policy. Its a big mover and i'll keep up with it for as long as it keeps those nice day ranges.

Happy trading!

This whole experience is one in a million.

This summer I read several books that gave me a thorough education on what banking is and what banking is in America. I was fascinated. I was so skeptical about Economics before this summer. To me, a bank gave loans and was a well insured safe for storing money. Boy was I wrong. How else could bankers be making so much just connecting buyers with sellers of capital? This is capitalism baby. You don't sit on top of thousands of dollars of cash. You make your cash work for you. You invest.

Before this summer, Investing to me was AAPL and GOOG. Also hilarious, these were my only indicators of the market status. If GOOG was above 550, the market was great. I had a weak understand of supply and demand, and ECON 101 was a bunch of bullshit theory.

My education started with seeing how investment banks raised capital and kept trading floors and expanded to the world of private equity. Again, I was fascinated. Dollar units were billions and millions. More often, billions. Markets were made by everyones contribution, yet not one contributor knew what would hapeen next. A great paradox for the market makers themselves(specialists) that support these contributors, but I woudln't have found so much free information if many people had not exploited the system and profited.

From Michael Lewis, I got educated about the Mortgage Giants FRE and FNM. Icouldn't believe how clever people like Lewie Ranieri, a IB mailroom clerk that woound up, trading billions of dollars worth of morgages, packaged mortgages and connected buyers and sellers to make a tradebale security out of millions of average joe's trying to buy homes. Consumer spending is 2/3 of GDP! Wall street had just exploited america's biggest source of income!!!!


Of course, FNM and FRE are now trading below 1.00. AFter reading about their explosion in the 80's I saw these giants fall to the gutter. I read about Lehman as a top recruiter for Ibankers at Wharton and saw it fall to shit. Today, MER was bought out by BAC. Brilliant. This year will go down in history. Books will be written, models will be made, and classroms of kids will hear about this for years. I was excited the day that 9/11 happened becuase I knew I was living through a historical moment. Today, I realized the same is happening again. A sell off warranted by fear from a terrorist attack is nothing compared to a sell off from LEH going under. THink about all of the credit related bonds and other securities that just get defaulted. It's like buying someone's Rolls Royce on account, driving it for a month, then wrecking it and taking a shit in the drivers seat before returning it to the seller.

ladies and gentlemen, as our fearless leaders like to say. We are not in a recession. :)

3 trades down .3%

Wow. 3 months of paper trading don't compare to how much more I've learned on real money. I used 3 trades on 2 different securities over the past 5 days, all short plays.

First short was PMI. I sold at 2.84. This was really a bad trade. It was unresearched and really just me betting anxious because my account was funded and I wanted to try it out. The stock was in the red and I thought a tank was in order even though other financials weren't going south. I did it anyway. Set my stop at 2.85 and once it cracked, I was in my first trade in the stock market. It did well. It tanked and I bought back at 2.78. Only 500 shares so my order wasn't that big and I wasn't seeing big enough movement for this to be worth commission and more importantly MY LIMITED trades. I have learned very quickly that I need to invest more and see big movement. So it was before 10AM and i had a small gain on my first trade ever. I wasn't going to settle. I thought this would fall again. So minutes later I re enter. Day trade number 2... gone. I sold off at 2.78. Totally uncalled for. It ran up and was soon over 2.80. I had definetly given back my gains since commissions are so steep with such small positions. The one good thing I did was use good stop losses. I limited my loss to 1% by setting my buy stop at 2.85. It hit and I ended my first day trading down 45$.

Lessons learned: Research is a must whether you want to take big positions or not. I have a small account and commissions will be my enemy.

My ego was bruised. But becuase I'm such a cheapskate I took this very personally. I was not going to allow myself to act this way and burn money. I wanted my money back and I knew I had simply acted poorly.

My next trade wasn't untill 3 trading days later. Yesterday I saw out DLIA on the % gainers list.
Dark side's picks weren't showing the morning action I like and the chat room was moving too quick for me as usual. I saw that DLIA had a good day after an earnings pump. So far the stock was hovering around the day before's close so I saw short potential and put a sell stop two cents under the day befores close. I waited and waited with my sound on high in case I wasn't staring at the char the moment it fell. I had a good feeling it was but after 2 hrs i was starting to lose hope. I kept waiting, even showered. Suddenly I heard that magic TOS trade execution noise. It tanked... hard. It fell so quick my stop wasn't executed until 5 cents later. at 2.43 I was short 1000 shares. It dipped to 2.20 realy quick and I had to take a share of my profits so i did. Within 30 seconds of hearing the noise that the order went through, I was out half of my postion in DLIA. I was sitting on nearly 50$ of profit but then it hit me. Or rather the TOS software told me so quickly. I had just committed my third and last day trade but was still in my short 500 shares.

Another lesson very quickly learned. I can't do this!!! i'm in a 5K account. I need to sell at once to conserve trades. Opportunities are every day. I gotta have trades ready. I started freaking out and explaining everything to Cameron, while also chatting with GS from the GOTS chat room who explained that I was still ok. I could buy back the rest of my position and still not be in offense of breaking the pattern day trader rule. All i had to do was call up TOS. I quickly had the trade re-credited to my account but DLIA had shot up. It was now around 2.55. Again I was losing my gains and commissions were tearing away at them as well. I set a stop loss at 2.61 thinking it'd have a hard time breaking 2.60 luckily it never got that close. I held for the rest of day and saw it fall to 2.45 right before close. I set a buy stop at 2.50 during after hours thinking it'd help my prevent losing more, which was totally correct but i have not experience with how after market trading worked. During aftermarket I saw a 2000 bid and a 2.10 ask on my poor little DLIA stock. I was confused but some GOTS fellows assured me it was normal. What i didn't know was that a wacky bid ask would be introduced at the open and sure enough my order went trhoug at the bell since the bid was 2.41and ask was 2.57. Some how I bought back the rest of my postion at 2.41 and I netted 30$ post commissions. I'm now sitting at $4881.01 with many lessons learned. I think that I did ver well with these first trades

I thought if i went red on my first trade i'd be devasted. I've realized that I really do have to wait for the perfect opportunity and not stress over that fact that i'm putting 5 grand on the line with my bets. I don't crunch the numbers like they are dollars, just points like they were on my paper account. With that, i'm ready for some fresh opportunties tommorw.

No picks at the moment. Research will be done in the morning.

Plenty of picks for you on Darkside, TIM, MIKE, and super-trades, as well as Yngvai.

Yeehaw

This isn't for fun anymore.

My account is reaching the end of the funding process so I'll be doing some thorough research for my picks in this post. I'll also try to limit the picks and keep a daily record of how successful the picks were.

Reflections and Predictions

Reflections:

FMD,DYAX,CROX all had beautiful fades starting at the opening bell, losing yesterday's gains steadily for the patient.

Looking at my 6 chart setup I saw 6 shorts I didn't get on because I overslept an hour. Further today again validated the importance of being self aware by 8 so that I can reserve shares to short.

Predictions

HYGS- Bigger pump. Or my opinion: Big dump. Earnings are a loss. Moving b/c it was on stocklists? This doesn't deserve $1.34. 1500 shares is $2010. Nice position.

Bad day for the financials. Tommorow is NOT another day Annie. These will fall:
RHD,RDN,SCA,ABK.

FMD,CROX-more falling

DYAX- Good drug news, yet falling? I'm out of this anwaya.

ZYXI- Must be a multiday rundown. Short into the open.

BHBC- Times are not good. Lets make it fall down to $1 from $1.50.

Enough. Sleep.

Back @ school and still papertrading.

Managed to make up a good bit of losses from uneducated guessing, and the account is @ about 98,200.

In the meantime, it's back to Carolina and time to turn this hobby into something more serious. Funding in progress, and visits to the banks tomorrow to figure out these pesky transfers.

The NEW

FMD- According to the last book I read when GS does anything, don't bet against them. They don't make billions taking stabs at the market. Should the flurry of buyers that joined GS taking their stake decide to bail, this might be worth my time.

DYAX-Pharm pump. Lets hope this drug fails so I can short. Probably being too naive not having enough experience with probabilities of this happening.

CKSW- Low volume. Big Mover. Absolutely zero news. I'll add this to my inventory of patterns. 3 month history shows this is not a new trend for the stock. Look for it to hold or fall. Regardless, no decisions until this market opens and others jump in. Essentially a management/infrastructure providing company. No foreseeable links to overall market conditions.

CROX- Well known. Liquid. Pump and sideways action. Tank please. $5.31 close


ANSV- Same as CROX. Trades lower at $2.45. Sideways action means the buyers and sellers are close to equilibrium. Price resistance is essentially whats going on. Of course I want for these penny stocks to fall back down. But this is down in the gutter, and when a stock does this, I think a fancy coming out party(IPO) is what had it in the clouds to begin with. Yea its not the most solid reasoning, but fuck, I'll justify charts however I want. If I'm wrong it won't be assumed again.



OLD NEWS

RAMR, ABK,SCA,RDN,RHD,TGIC,BIOS, ZYXI



Experimental Strategies. Buying todays % gainers for gapup's and finding the daily % gainer gems.

Some picks for a day i wont be trading. Just for practice.

ABK- This little pos i've known since the first day it appeared on the % gainers list. I watched it specially because it got mention on Tim Sykes blog, but only as something he'd never touch since it was a financial play. Not only has it over doubled since then, but today it kept the gains going. I said i'd wait for sideways action and a fall on my post that got deleted for yesterday, but for tommorow, any upward movements will be solid gains in partial. We won't be seeing a sell off soon.

BIOS- Wanting to short this very badly, but it whenever it reaches 4.01 it never loses that extra cent. I'll continue to watch it for short

DENN- This guy gapped down after a solid day on the % gainers list for Tuesday the 5th. Still it ended green for the day up 8%. This is on my momentum list. News says it wants to regain breakfast kind status.... but its all just some hype that'll blowover once the market realizes it.

CBOU- this is why the market fascinates me. Q2 losses on this coffee shop weren't as bad as expected so.... pump it up! 3-4th time its made the % gainers list. I want this to fall bad. Anyone who compares this to SBUX is out of their mind.

MKTY- If i was trading I would join the short train on this that has been riding this stock downward since last week. Its still at 3 meaning plenty more to drop.

RDN and RHD- These are both going higher. I'm more sure of RDN. It got that nice pattern of holding on to a good bit of a intraday spike.

SCA- Be careful of the steep runups bit this one wants up too.

Now my failures.

ABK and GGC were both on my list. ABK had a good breakout leading me to think it'd crack six today but no such luck. GGC...... man what a beautiful fade. Right after the open too. It just kept falling afterwards. Also it gapped up making the short even more profitable if you had good timing. It made up some of the fall but not much and ended the day on bad news saying it just paid to dismiss a lawsuit. Sales are down becuase of housing crisis. bla blah blah. Shutup and go back to the sewer you rat!




I'll have to start waking early to get shorts in but tommorw I won't be around a computer anyway. This is just a way to get my predictions down and access my accuracy and build my eye.

long post lost.

short
ABK
RHD
RDN
GCC
BIOS
DENN

illiquid
UBET
FLWS

long
IDAE


DONE

DOH!

The LASM is back, big time. I should've gone to that thing, at that place today. Instead I stayed home, and let the LASM consume me. Too bad one stop didn't have any S. Any my "attempts" to scalp W on the way were as productive as lucrative as my "attempts" themselves.

I think I did a good job of letting my parents know. I just dumped a pot full of fresh cooked minute rice into the trash can. Take that Dr. Phil! I'm out of control. I had a flash back to my first encounter with LASM earlier today where I rolled around unpredictably doing my best impression of having a seizure I could conjure up. Last time I did it right after a shower on my bed full of clothes.... Well, at least now I sleep on that bed. Ironically enough, this time it was on the floor next to the bed-- where I used to sleep. Last time a trip to random stores helped settle my thoughts. This time, I'll ride this wave out until I've squeezed every last bit of dopamine out of my poor nerve cells.

f*#@*$@#($#@(&$@#&($(#@$&(~!

LASM returning

I haven't been reading, I stopped trading two days ago, but days have been busier. I guess that answers it. Either way i certainly havne't read quite as much as I intended too. After all, I've got half the fucking trading/stock market section of the University City Public Library on my new bookshelf.

Eh, no mainstream news tickling my dopamine receivers I guess. But nonetheless, Mr. Hussein and Zuckerburg have crept back into my life. Further, I think the LASM is partially derived from the onslaught of completely depressing news that fills the headline boards on my favorite news sites.

LOL Sauce. This is the first paragraph of an article about CITI

The attorney general of New York, Andrew M. Cuomo, said on Friday that he would take legal action against Citigroup, which he said misled investors about the dangers of auction-rate securities and destroyed evidence that his office had requested as part of its investigation into the company’s sales practices.


3 months ago I would have read this, frowned, and thought about if this is what Dr. Byrns my ECON 101 prof meant by greedy captitalist pigs... Now I think, well damn, I guess the general public will never know that the sales and trading rooms of IB's everywhere are legal boiler rooms. Think of it this way, everyone always talks about buy side trading: "Buy AAPL, the iPhone 3G is going to blowup sales," "GOOG is growing faster than any company ever, buy now!!" First of all, anyone that talks about GOOG and AAPL and speculates about the stock market is about as trustworthy as your friendly neighborhood methhead. Second, the guys spreading this hype are elaborate salesmen-- paid-off promoters, analysts, and investors. They'll never try to advise you to sell GOOG because earnings didn't meet expectations. Short selling is too abstract for the average American. For every buyer out there, a seller must also exist. Thus when IB's invest in 300 million shares of VISA after listening to the promoters, analysts, and investors, and the deal goes sour, the shares can't just be dumped back in the market. It takes some convincing. It takes... a good salesmen. Don't blame CITI. Blame the buyers. The market operates on one principle: Caveat Emptor-Let the buyer beware.

I've decided I refuse to hear anymore about politics/political candidates untill after the election. Any attempt I make to hear about Bush only confirms my decision to award him the Douchebag of the Past 8 years award, and well.... I've written about Obamo way too much already.

Read previous posts on my award presentation, and Obama at my old blog. You will also find here, an explanation of the aforementioned acronym LASM--it's not a stock symbol... its a disease, and I suffer from it. Go to my website and click "About me" www.nlak.weebly.com

Things continue to be unsettling in America. The pace at which negative economic activity is breaking records is perhaps the worse but unequivocal to what it all stems from... LEVERAGE.

Oh... what to share?

You'll find all of my previous rants and adventures from my quick introduction to the wild world of finance this summer .... fucking formatting i can't get this underline off. anyway, visit
www.nlak.weebly.com and click blog to see all previous posts.

Now for some beautiful charts

Excuse the USS blurriness. As long as you see the latest red bars on the chart you see my source of satisfaction and pride. After 3 days of incredible pumping, this thing was swelling with sell off. All it took was some patience. I bought at 4.34 and saw it drift downward I knew 4.00 was the tanking point. If it could reach this, hundreds.... no thousands of computers would execute automated limit trades and a sell of would ensue. I was right. All it took was aptience. I saw resistance at 3.70 and took a quick $640 right to my pocket. It felt good to finally so many of the fundamental i'd been reading about acutally happen right in front of my eyes. Following this stock as an adrenaline rush. Occasionally on my TOS software i'd see a desperate seller dip way below the current price in attempts to bring in buyers but this thing had gained way too many on the ride up, everyone wanted their profit or everyone was in for a long short selling ride. TAnk it did. AFter my exit it closed in the 3.20's and the next day it fell below 2. What a beaut. I could've rode it more but the next morning my eye was on DSL, my $95 pride and joy. This required absoluetly 0 research- which the market has yet to teach me a lesson on, just good timing. I saw a sell off and within 10 minutes max had shorted and covered to get a 10% gain on a thosand dollar principal.

These two trades have taught me what months of reading had left me skeptical about. Picking stocks off the % gainers list is easy and simple. Watching them fall requires patience and thats all I need to work on. tommorw's top short is VC. Its been pumped up on the % gainers list for 2 days for sure. The fundamental here is that value cannot be added this quickly.... unless the news is stellar. Lets face it... if you're trading below $5 to begin with anything can easily become "stellar" news. This is the beauty of pennystocking i've realized. I've got a variety of other stocks. You'll find them on posted on www.nlak.weebly.com under FILES as a txt file called Stock picks. I'm feeling good about VC.

At this point, i'm playing anything that presents itself. Whether its a financial group riding the recent credit recovery, or a pharmaceutical boasting succesfull trials of a drug. I've found anything that can raise these puny companies is easily lost once confidence is.

AS i told my future roomate. The market is a combination of hype and resulting movement. Reading the hype and predicting movement is all it takes to build a position and predicted movements quickly create happy traders.

In other news. There have been copious articles for those of you keeping up with headlines on the Economist, WSJ, FT or NYT regarding america's addiction to leverage. While I'im not particucarly interested in this while i'm studying the market, i feel very confident for calling this on my old blog.

See HERE for more info on the huge loss of confidence. Of course, if my simple summary of the market holds the market is not done tumbling at all.

Good think shorting requires nothing more than paying attention. Happy times :)