CHATROOM

You Can’t Keep These 3 Good Stocks Down

November 19, 2007 at 8:43 pm
by Timothy Sykes

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Despite the sagging overall market, some stocks have managed to buck the trend—in fact, some have even managed to break out to new highs. Dow down 220, pish posh! Here are three breakout plays.

Astronics (Nasdaq: ATRO ), a $400 million company that supplies a whole bunch of products to the aerospace industry, has been on a tear lately, breaking out to an all-time high at $49.28. Annual

revenue growth is in the 40% range, but will moderate to the 10-20% range next year so it’s getting pretty pricey now with a forward PE of 23. But given its recent strength in the face of such a difficult market environment, I wouldn’t short it here.

atro.png

Verisign (Nasdaq: VRSN ) an $8 billion enabler and protector of voice and data networks, just broke out to a 3-year high in the $36 range. The stock is pricey here, but everybody seems to like their recently announced plan to breakup into lots of smaller companies and their price increase has been very gradual so far—a very bullish sign. I’d wait to see how this fares over the next few days before rushing in.

vrsn.png

Broadcast International (OTCBB: BCST ), a $125 million developer of next generation video compression technology, has been hot lately—ever since they debuted their technology at IBM’s booth at an expo a few weeks ago. Their technology promises to speed up HD-video streaming so it’s exciting and you gotta remember that excitement, momentum and hype is what smallcap “investing” is all about. Out of the three, I’d be most likely to buy this one even though it’s got zero business fundamentals. High risk, high reward, we’ll see—it’s already moved prêt far pretty fast the past week…(they’re so tiny they don’t even get a chart on Stockcharts.com!)

Warning: Look at the tag on this post, these are only potential plays, I have no positions in any of them!

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  • notesguy88

    Man, I’m feeling a bit nervous this morning. I’m doing a TV interview right at 9:30 am and I would be unable to monitor APII for at least 20 minutes. I’m thinking of putting in a trailing stop order just in case.

  • Reaper

    Doesn’t look like anything great to play with. Most of these are earnings spikers and not up that much. I’ll just deal with my APII short and hope other stocks spike some more.

  • kelvin

    “technical analysis means little with earnings in the next day

  • TheParadox

    when do earnings come out on APII… today @ ???

  • mbaugh

    paradox, earnings were released yesterday, it was worse than shitty! This turd is going down today.

  • YoungGunz

    they did already and were horrible

  • Reaper

    APII nice big 2k share block at the ask at 2.95 premarket

  • Cashiuus

    What do you guys think about TSYS? They reported record earnings on July 31 and have been on the rise ever since. It’s probably still risky to short them for a pullback, but it looks like volume might be tapering off.

    They are a wireless communications technology company dealing with GPS patents.

  • Gertsomething

    Should I still go short on APII at 2.95?

  • YoungGunz

    If I was you I would probably just sit it out. There will always be more trades. This isn’t like the end all be all of short plays.

  • be-the-ball

    TIm,

    no email alert received here. FYI

  • http://www.test.timothysykes.com timothysykes

    BTB, u’re on the list, everyone is on the list, email sometimes fails, thats why we have this website

  • Gertsomething

    If you are using Micro$soft, you better check your spam folder since they rolled out an update today (at least here I saw it)

  • be-the-ball

    Email sometimes fails. what a fuckin bullshit answer Tim. Especially from someone I am paying to provide the emails.

    I receive hundreds of emails a day, as I am sure you do and approximately 0% of them fail

    fuckin bullshit answer Tim!

  • Gertsomething

    I should have stepped in….Grrrr.

  • http://www.test.timothysykes.com timothysykes

    shutup BTB, its probly in your spambox or coming later…we’ll have a new email solution int he coming weeks, for now u’re just gonn ahave to deal with a 30% drop in APII yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

  • be-the-ball

    not in my spambox, you jerkoff. I am not one of your frat boy newbies.

  • http://www.test.timothysykes.com timothysykes

    covered APII at 2.66, horrible exit, email going out now

  • http://www.test.timothysykes.com timothysykes

    awww btb pissed he didnt just bank!

  • Reaper

    covered half my APII around 2.50, back down to 2k shares. I intend to hold them for a bit.

  • YoungGunz

    took some profit at 2.341 with 100 shares of my 300 share position…tried to get the 100 in when i saw it crack 2.20 but it was recovering fast from the panic.

  • http://www.test.timothysykes.com timothysykes

    repaer i want a big $ gain testimonial from u, i intend on selling a lifetime TIMalert subscription with this trade!

  • be-the-ball

    no, pissed I didn’t get your email, your jerk

  • das317

    awesome call tim. i didn’t take that one for some reason, but worked out nice.

  • AdamN

    Tim, congrats on reaching $25K and increasing your portfolio by 100%. I wasn’t able to get in on the APII action, I was too scared from my loss on Tuesday.

  • YoungGunz

    OK Tim covered at 2.66 so if all the nay sayers are correct about him effecting pricing they all should be buying now to profit from all of us covering.

    As I type this the price is falling back down to 2.30s

  • Reaper

    Tim, I’m still short 2k shares. I may hold the rest of today, maybe into tomorrow. I have $1394 in realized profits already. This isn’t going to be a huge gain because it wasn’t liquid enough for me to go big.

  • patelt78

    I covered my short at 2.27. I originally shorted at 3.00 in after hours yesterday evening.

  • Getshorty

    Poor Reaper, just banking $2800 so far.

    GO spen it in a package to bahamas and cry there

  • Reaper

    I’ve got other things I need to do. I closed my last APII shorts. Total profit: $3267.55.

    Here are my trades (these are averages; I legged in and out of positions):

    Ticker Shares Open Date Price Position Close Date Price Profit ($) Profit (%)

    APII 2000 8/13/2008 $3.211 $6,423 8/14/2008 $2.27 $1,873.17 41.17%
    APII 2000 8/13/2008 $3.211 $6,423 8/13/2008 $3.022 $378.60 6.26%
    APII 200 8/13/2008 $3.045 $609 8/14/2008 $2.505 $108.00 21.56%
    APII 800 8/13/2008 $3.095 $2,476 8/14/2008 $2.505 $472.00 23.55%
    APII 600 8/13/2008 $3.211 $1,927 8/14/2008 $2.485 $435.78 29.23%

  • Ross

    Congratulations to those that were able to stay in on this. I had my stop too low and got bumped out at the end of the day. :(

  • http://www.test.timothysykes.com timothysykes

    good reaper!

  • Reaper

    LOL Getshorty.

  • milingz

    Tim…good work brother. Short at 3.05 with 300 shares (all that TOS had in the AH) and then covered a few minutes ago at 3.40 for a nice profit off $241.50. Thanks for helping a college student with a poor paying internship out….you tought me more in a few weeks than Merrill Lynch has in a few months!

  • be-the-ball

    nice work everyone. big gamble that paid off big.

    glad Tim is finally over $25k now

  • http://www.test.timothysykes.com timothysykes

    love that NOBL is suqeezing stupid shorts who reject the definition of support levels

  • http://www.test.timothysykes.com timothysykes

    MNLU trying to break out big, cant….so far

  • Getshorty

    Shorted 1000 shares of APII at the retarded yesterday’s worst price of $ 3, and still holding, looks to me like it has had bounces since morning basically because of shorts covering. I’ll just let it die.

  • http://www.test.timothysykes.com timothysykes

    APII’s got nothing to stand on, methink its gong under $2….i’m an idiot for getting too greedy

  • Getshorty

    Oink Oink, haven’t covered yet, I feel like such a pig….. and it feel good !!

  • Reaper

    Citron Research just blasted FOUR.ob. Plenty of shares at TOS. I’ve been whacking it with a 10k sell order.

  • Ross

    I screwed up on reading the Alert on EVSO and got in @ 2.6 a few days ago. This has been a bad week for me, down $500. Don’t know if I should ride it out or just take the loss on EVSO. It looks like it is just going to be squeezed down to nothing. Crap stock and don’t know why I thought the alert said it may go up to $3 Should of confirmed Tim’s thinking on this stock but didn’t want to email him since he already gets spammed enough as it is. I dumped USS stock for a loss cause it doesn’t look like it will ever get up high enough to recover. Tried to to reserve some USS and MNLU to short today but no shares available. Time to walk away from all this for a while. I am such a friggin rookie and should of been a little more cautious about the trades I made and know exactly what I was getting into. I feel like an idiot.

  • Reaper

    FOUR yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Reaper

    Covered a bit of my FOUR.ob around $6.93. I’ll probably keep much of the rest for the next couple days.

  • patelt78

    Ross, MNLU is a potential breakout. Why would you short it???

  • ddopps

    anybody think XRM looks like it’s gonna crack and fall apart?

  • astaluss1

    wow i pussed out of APII at 3.19 from 3.36…. could have been KILLER

  • justin

    ZYXI breakout

  • bestdeception

    Wow, FOUR looks awful. Why cover so quick Reaper? Citron’s report is unbelievable.

  • Reaper

    bestdecpetion — I covered so quick because my position was too large for my taste. It is also in my TOS account, which is my smaller brokerage account (relative to my IB account). These frauds can easily bounce back even after negative publicity like this. Think MXFD after I repeatedly bashed it on my blog and Carol Remond bashed it. My current position is small enough that I could hold on for awhile, even if the price spikes.

    Also, I am going on vacation Saturday.

    I will probably cover a bit more as it falls.

  • Reaper

    Also, I should point out that I had shorted FOUR before, back when it was at 5. I did the same research Left did and already new about the problems (they were pretty obvious). Yet the stock still went up 100%.

  • Ross

    @ Patel

    I meant CHME instead of MNLU and couldn’t edit my post. I am not on any of these trades right now and just staying liguid till I have a little more confidence about what I am doing. At this point I am kind of embarassed and feel like an idiot.

  • adairjm

    Ross, you shouldn’t feel embarrassed about taking losses. However, it is probably a good time to sit back and reflect on what you want from trading and to learn from those mistakes. Do you want to “invest”, then you really shouldn’t be buying OTCBB stocks. Especially ones being spammed. If you want to trade, then you really need to take the time to learn about price action. Understand support/resistance and how stocks move and how much they can move (up or down).

    I’d suggest getting on Level II and watching a stock for a while. One with a some volume, but doesn’t move real fast. No OTCBB stocks because you can’t tell anything there. Watch the bid and ask and see how the stock backs off when there are tons of sellers on the ask. Or how the stock finds support when the bid gets large. Usually, you can play those intraday swings for 20-30 fairly consistently.

    And ALWAYS make preservation of capital your number one priority!

    Anyway, just my two cents. Best of luck in your trading.

  • Reaper

    FOUR pretty dead. Looks like I’ll be holding for awhile.

  • Ross

    @ adairjm

    Thanks for the feedback. I understand this is gambling and not investing so I am not too upset except that I didn’t know what I was doing and deserved what I got. I certainly need to spend more time learning. Not sure what Level II is all about and how to get that. Is there an extra fee or balance requirement? Anyway time for me to sit back and reflect. I am still watching the DVD’s and reading Tim’s book and learning the terminolgy and the trading interface with TOS. I am currently liguid with around 7K when I ready to enter the game again.

  • adairjm

    Ross,

    Level II shows how the market makers and participants are lining up on the bid/ask. It is definitely beneficial for getting a short term idea of stock price and direction. I’m not sure if TOS provides Level II. I get it free with my TDA account.

    Jason