Sunday, April 29, 2007

Membership extended

Due to data problems with my scanning software which resulted in limited number of ideas in April,
memberships to fee based members only group will be extended to May, for no additional payment.
Enjoy and spread the word!

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Good day for a hype

Especially on NASDAQ
after (AAPL) did it again

In light of that event I declare (ZVUE) the trade of the day - it might just do it again.
(ZVUE) is a recent pick of BullTrapper from TradeGuild blog
( I ahve position in that stock - already at the really nice profit, so - don't help me - help yourselves :)


* Above stocks picks ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE JUST BOUGHT OR SOLD!!! *
* I POST DETAILED STRATEGY FOR EACH OF THE ABOVE ON THE MEMBERS PRIVATE SITE *

There is a shortage of stocks!

"Common sense is not so common"
Voltaire


You heard it "second" here
First you heard it ( if you watch that ... - I wish I could be polite and say "box of moonlight" or if you waste your time and make Cramer money by staying tuned ).

That IS classic, I've heard it SO many times before, there is no need to be knowledgeable technician or "fundamentalist".

There should be just some common sense left: "Shortage of stocks"

I am a big fan of history, let me rephrase : "there is a shortage of tulip bulbs", this is as classic as it gets - I am really having fun now.

Listen up - take you profits from long positions by the end of today, create huge lists of "shorts", don't you short it yet - hysteria never end easy, but does so suddenly, leaving you no time to react if you are not professional 24/7 trader, look for another 100-200 points on a DOW - and desert "long camp".


Monday, April 23, 2007

The emperor's new clothes

No, it is not about retail or agriculture,
it is about dreams inspired by fairy tales some of us came to love when we were kids,
it is about ability to be able to have own opinion and not to be afraid to express it,
no matter how foolish it seems to others.

Kids don't read much nowadays, too bad...
Inventor of penicillin is not as well known as inventor of James Bond...
( Let say - this is a "trivia question" )

Well, enough of "sugar was sweeter" talk - lets talk money, most of modern people enjoy it way better than fairly tales. ( Unless it is about money :)

Lets talk falling all mighty dollar, lets try to convince ourselves that it is good since foreigners are going to invest more money in America and therefore stimulate American economy.
Lets forget about budget and trade deficit ( especially - trade deficit, which did not look good even while dollar was not that ... what is the word? well, let just say - when it was double of that what it is now. What? It is still not 1/2 of what it was? You just wait and say nothing - it'll happen. )

Lets talk 13K on a Dow, it is nice to talk about "good number". Or may be we'll talk about "ten commandments" - TEN is a good number, right?

Who really gives a wooden nickel about as CNBC calls it "significance" of 13K - what is it going to prove? How about that - we are at the top of the hill - where do we go from here?

You know, I have not been overly pessimistic since February correction, most of the trades I've done since then - are on a long side.

Now it is time to realize that we are still in "P/E bear/flat market", we've been there since 2001 based on historical returns of S&P there is nothing to be excited about - unless someone wants to be excited about flat ( according to long term historical data) earnings.

There is nothing exciting about companies strangling to beat unreasonably lowered estimates.

There is nothing exciting about "consumer is strong" propaganda - tell it to the guy who wanted to flip the house, well tell it to anyone who wants to sell the house...

Tell it to private equity firms who use stagnant stock prices ( yes, stagnant - in spite of some pockets of strength ) to grab anything and everything - why not to buy now - money is cheap!

May is getting closer, I think market has priced in rates cut - well, we do have a NEW Chairman - he does not want to make mistake - let me ask - who makes more mistakes? I think the one who is concerned about making it.

Have you noticed the latest NEW BIG THING?
Green day stocks? Entire sector exploded, traders cheered, bought in and dumped the very next day - so much for a moment of glory.

Tops are not formed in one day, tops might be flat - I think this is where we are now.
"Proceed with extreme caution"

DavidDT

P.S. For those of you who are still reading this post written "while under influence of bad market day" - I thought this article might be of some interest and of partial explanation of "what the hell that guy ( A.K.A. DavidDT ) was talking about )

That Permanently High Plateau by John Mauldin 10/20/2006

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

To "BeEP"-Trade or not to "beEP"...

(in the following post due to my legal department requirements name of corporation has been substituted with distinct sound of "beep" - readers may substitute it to any desired name at their own risk )

I've been avoiding posts with ratings of different brokers due to "touchy" nature of the subject which involves multiple variables, such as:
1. What type of trader/investor "that" broker is best suited for
2. How execution quality compares to others brokers.
3. Fees / Margin rates
4. Services
5. Reliability
6. Disaster recovery preparedness
7. Ability to fix unexpected problems
8. Customer service
9. Technical support
and on and on...

As for myself, I have been a "satisfied customer" of "beep-beep"... hmm.. I am wrong, I have NOT been totally happy since "beep + beep".
Let say I was a "satisfied customer" of "beep"...was I? Well, let say I was NOT unhappy or unsatisfied.
I WAS a "satisfied customer" of "beep" in the good old Island ECN times - execution guarantee (rapid fire that was), clean fast interface, reasonable account services, great knowledgeable customer service with no "hold time" - perfect blend of essential trading tools and services that WAS.

As time went by and "beep" is no more and "beep" is "beep + beep" - a lot of things have changed and just like everywhere when small "mobile" innovative company becoming "huge corporate behemoth" - not all of those changes were for the best. Of course, it is just my opinion and I am notoriously famous for been "the only one to complain"
Have not some of you heard it before: "YOU are the ONLY ONE to complain"?

Anyhow, setting aside a lot of important and not so important changes, I'd like to talk about quality of "not guaranteed" data services provided by "beep" ( Of course, "beep" can not be liable for something they don't provide, right?).
Well, of course, "beeP" mostly just redistribute data services to traders like everyone else, and that is completely fine as long as THERE IS DATA.

As a former "techy" I would expect some reasonable interruptions in data services from time to time with imminent / immediate "Trader's finest" response to any problems with data - no data service is 100%, not 100% of a time, lets go and fix it!

And trading is only as good as the data trading decisions are based on.

Now here is a problem:
I've been using "beep-beep" scanning software for ages, in spite of opinion of some technical reps from "beep" that this is "outdated technology" and needs to be re-written in "hot" C# AND JAVA (at the same time) using .Net framework. ( If you wonder where I got such smart/catchy words from - just go to tech book store and read titles on "programming" bookshelf - that is where Hiring Managers getting "job requirements" from)

That application, for those not familiar with, conveniently combines fundamental data available for customer defined scans with sufficient enough charting and watchlists.
It cost $20 for "general "beep" population" and is a "free" ( perk ) for "top" customers ( those who trade A LOT or have a lot... - well, you figured - it is NOT "free" - everybody pays one way or another)

But wait! Few months ago short interest data mysteriously disappeared from the set of fundamental data and since a lot of scans I ( and ANY skilled technician ) use have it as one of the conditions - scans stopped working correctly. After number of calls and emails which all produced the very same answer by "beep"'s differently ranked officials, which was: "We are having slight temporary problems which are currently under investigation, it will be fixed shortly", finally case cracked open.
Due to my persistence someone admitted that "current data provider is not supplying that data anymore".
Understood, you cannot get what you want from one "guy" - you buy it from another one.
Not that simple - "It COSTS money". WOW - I thought something was free. Of course, I just been sarcastic, it is given that "data costs money" - this is how money is made by data provider and, in turn, indirectly by "beep" because customers are WITH "beep" because, partially, of DATA SERVICES "beep" passes on to them!
No ETA was given on WHEN (IF EVER) that orphan short interest column will have data.

I ate it and removed short interest from all scans hoping that it will be the last of the problems I have to deal with for NO GOOD REASON.

Well, was I wrong... now VOLUME IS MISSING.
YES, you heard me right - VOLUME is missing as well as closing prices for "some of NASDAQ" stocks and NONE heard about it at "beep" until I called and did so about 30 thousand times together with thousands of other "happy" customers, but sounds like every caller was "the only one to complain and they never ever heard about that problem until..." - well you know the rest.
Oh, by the way - according to "beep"'s officials it "just started to happen", well - according to MY observations and inability to use otherwise quite useful application - it has been going on for few months now.

As an "top" customer of "beep" I do not pay for "scanning software" ( at least - directly), but I would love to hear if customers who pays about $20 per month have been offered reimbursement for malfunctioning due to "data problem" software which "was not guaranteed" of course - but it really should work if it is a part of the deal, should it?

In case if you, my readers were wondering why I am not posting as much ideas as before ( and, not to complain, but...why I am not making as much money as before) - this post is an answer.

Now I have to do "disclaimer":
"All written in this article could be my hallucination, it might all be fiction, no companies' names mentioned in this post should ever be associated with real "beep+beeP" or "beep" or "beep" as all names used in this post are fictional and random and accidental match with real names in the real corporate world is unintentional and coincidental. Any attempt by anyone to presume that "BEEP" is "beep" is deemed to be harmful to the author of this post and to "beep" corp. and will be punished by applicable laws made by corporations for their own good. Any attempt by the customers, affected by events described in this article, not to bend over, but complain instead - will be met with utmost corporate bureaucratic football - we are just customers, right?

Oh.. and the only reason why this post is been written is that "Hold time is greater than 7 minutes" most of the time, which works great when you have to place a trade.

WAY TO GO "BEEP+BEEP"

P.S.
I think corporations have to hire more Project Management Office professionals - the single lonely coder cannot do his job properly with only 10 managers - 20 is a good number. Problem solved...bonus divided...coder fired...

P.P.S. START CLEANING THE HOUSE OF CARDS FROM THE TOP!

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Support this site - if you like it

This site is totally free ( excluding additional Members Services with precise trading strategies for each stock I trade/watch myself).
But, if any of about 300 daily visitors believe that this site deserves to be known to higher number of readers, please, help me spread the word - I personally don't have time to post on YAHOO, Investor Village or Raging Bull boards - this site is onle as "alive" as number of people who think it is helpful.

So, PLEASE, SPREAD THE WORD!

(BLTI) sell decision proved to be very timely - I feel better now ( I was not 100% positive that sell WAS correct and TIMELY - now I know )

Good luck today.

Monday, April 09, 2007

I am back ... almost

Dull trading day, as dull as they get - no surprise, I guess a lot of traders are still enjoying long weekend or just don't feel like trading on Passover and Ester.

In spite of stale market, two trades triggered on Thursday continued to move higher (DVR) and (ENZ) and one more fired up today (ICOC).
Exited (BLTI) long - topped?

Below is a static jpeg of spreadsheet provided on a regular basis to Members.



* Above stocks picks ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE JUST BOUGHT OR SOLD!!! *
* I POST DETAILED STRATEGY FOR EACH OF THE ABOVE ON THE MEMBERS PRIVATE SITE *

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

"Midas touch" or Tax Season?

Tough choice? Easy choice?
Guess what I would be doing if it was up to me?
At least most of processing for Schedule D is handled by Quicken+TurboTax, but human eye still has a lot "catching up" to do...

Today was a first day I touched the keyboard after "away from market A.K.A. vacation time". Wasted most of last 2 weeks flying around, visiting friends I grew up with.

Did 4 trades today, all long, all at 12 noon - just did it and went out to eat.
Shopped around for new laptop - my old one is saying final goodbye - I respect seniority, but not expressed in clicking hard drive and hazy LCD screen.

So, 4 long positions opened today are:
(BLTI)
(CYCL) <= scared to death :) - earnings tomorrow, not my style really
(VSGN)
(SHRP)

Since I'll be kind of tied up doing taxes next few days ( at least few days )
here some LONG ideas for the time being:
(ESST) - complement of Sinsecato from TradeGuild TagBoard
(HRAY)
(ICOC) - above 6.24
(INO) above 3.48
(LCRD) above 13.53
(LIPD) - now - speculative, really
(TSEM) - small position longer term

I hope I will have some money left after taxes for trading :_)))

Oh, one more thing - subscription for Members Services at discount price of $30 per month is closed for April 2007,
better luck for May (at regular $50 per month price ) to those who hesitated.