I Had A Rough Day aka No Playboy Centerfolds For Me :(
COIN’s $1 spike at the open makes me feel better about covering too early last week, gotta be careful with momo plays in this sneakily-emerging bull market. MALL and VVTV displayed the exact same kind of forced buying Thursday into the close, same dip afterhours, so I awoke early to reserve shares of each, fully expecting big drops growing bigger throughout the day (return to normalcy). No MALL available so my focus was on VVTV. Shorted 600 shares at $5.90-ish pre-market, didn’t want to take a full position in case of morning spike…at the open there was a wall of sellers at $5.90 so I doubled up, shorting 400 shares more at $5.87…20 min in, looking good at $5.70, but instead of taking my $175-ish in profits, I got greedy, rationalizing this should retrace all the way down to $5-$5.25…mistake #1
Overall market exploded upwards, stock held that important $5.70 level (mini-support from Thursday), broke through the wall at $5.90 (bad for shorts like me!), spiked to $6…I still held, thinking it was a multi-day holder—especially with earnings coming up and their tendency to screw up…back down to $5.90, but held…gotta cover when former resistance becomes support…I didn’t…mistake #2
MALL was also bouncing $1 off its lows…quick squeeze past $6, I panicked and covered at $6.09…gotta play it safe…protect TIM at all costs…stock hung around $6 rest of the day…$223 loss, not the end of the world, but it’s a stupid loss because I ignored what the price action was trying to tell me…aka the problem with me trying to be a longer term short and go for bigger gains.
TIM Lesson: Don’t try to rationalize with your near-meaningless opinions, respect technical levels
Oh yeah and my failure to wait until the afternoon on a less-than-ideal (no multi-day setup) trade didn’t help either…minimizing loss was huge, but will be soooooo nice when I can actually get back in the same day!…rest of the day, MALL and VVTV proceeded gradually, if not hugely, lower, VVTV testing $5.70 again, holding, bouncing…gotta wait for support to crack before shorting!All that action made me miss a nice breakout in MNTA, but nope, I don’t feel the least bit guilty about not playing all these volatile mortgage/finance stocks like BSC MF, FMD…they might be trading like penny stocks, but they’re not eligible for PennyStocking
HALO’s morning spike reaffirmed my previous thinking coulda woulda shoulda shorted off its failure to crack resistance at $7 but hindsight is easy…saw it fade gradually all afternoon, waited for it to take out the day low of $6.60-ish, shorting 600 share at $6.60…stock quickly tanked below $6.50 to actually go negative on the day…I was getting excited to see morning route tomorrow (clear path to $6.10-ish, meaning no support), then all of a sudden, a high volume buying wave brought up to $6.70…squeezed a bunch of shorts…including me…strangest thing I’ve seen in a while…couldn’t risk it, especially with a biotech (news could be forthcoming)…covered at $6.69 for $70-ish loss…
Fact remains 90%+ of microcrap and smallcrap stocks up strong after 3 days which are barely hanging positive go negative before days end and get routed the next morning/day…this turned out to be one of the 10% where it didn’t work…odds were on my side, I’d do it again and again…maybe tomorrow it cracks big, we’ll see…
And as for all your people wanting more out of VLNC, too bad, it’s not at any breakout level, aka back to random price action!
FRPT showed strength, but after the close their auditor resigned, gonna restate financials, delisting…all typical gutter trash microcrap tendencies, expect the same from the likes of other pumper favs like COIN, IDMI, CTIB, CTDC
What a crappy day, but I did contain my losses well…gotta focus on IDEAL pattern only…C’mon you bulls, show your strength and gimme an exponential gainer to play before month end so I don’t have to feel this worthless!
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| Date | Stock | Buy | Sell | Net |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sept 4 | COIN | $5.70 | $6.21 | $745 |
| Sept 3 | COIN | $6.49 | $6.30 | $305 |
| Sept 3 | COINW | $2.75 | $2.85 | $180 |
| Sept 2 | TAYD | $7.51 | $8.13 | $545 |
| Aug 18 | FOUR | $2.80 | $2.66 | $342 |
| Aug 14 | APII | $2.66 | $3.30 | $1261 |
| Aug 12 | APII | $3.25 | $3.40 | $285 |
| Aug 7 | NOBL | $5.02 | $5.49 | $680 |
Total: $26,508 (
114%)
1Greg
March 24th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
i found another cool site:
http://themarketkid.blogspot.com
2Mike D
March 24th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
What do you think about GLUU? Think it’s ready to short?
3Evan
March 24th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Tim,
Would DMRC be on your radar at all- or is the actual sale of some of their crap the type of news that makes it avoidable?
4timsykes
March 24th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
dont play buyouts, partial buyouts, mergers or earnings, unless buying blowout earnings/breakouts, everything else too unpredictable
5Brian D
March 24th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Too bad you’re fairly strict on your plays i’ve been hitting pretty good with new highs on the microcaps and then watching them get dumped. The exponential gainers have been fairly soft since the beginning of the month you’ve got to have some extra charts up your sleeve somewhere. There is more transparency than just a one day hold on some of these.
6timsykes
March 24th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
nah new highs means little to me, with my poor timing skills, exponential gainers is where the real $ is at, everything else just wastes my time as i’m proving…
7Jibri
March 24th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Hey Tim, I’m a newbie, what’s a good place to get info on stocks to do research?
8john
March 24th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
i know you don’t like to mess with non-micros, but what do u think of shorting NWN & SJI?
9Frank Tudor
March 24th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Don’t feel so crappy. I coulda, woulda, shoulda got out of VIsa this morning, instead i lounged around and finally bounced out at $61.08. Over all I made a profit on the trade, but it could have been much sweeter.
Frank
10coolguy
March 24th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Hey John,
What makes you think NWN and SJI to short? I don’t see anything compelling on the chart to short either of these.
11john
March 24th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
http://stockcharts.com/c-sc/sc.....amp;r=8538 200/50 DMA bearish cross recently, RSI and STO both give stock room to fall.
http://stockcharts.com/c-sc/sc.....amp;r=2464 same thing here, recent bearish EMA cross and oscillators are saying it is not oversold
12timsykes
March 24th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
agreed coolguy, both charts look like random, random patterns, could be bottoms, could be fakeouts
13lmsmith
March 25th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Good Old Visa….. Such a typical play……. The first day, was the day to buy early in the a.m and dump at the high….. I knew after about 2 days of trading- it will eventually downtrend……
Tim… it’s okay…. everyday is a new day to make money!
14ty
March 25th, 2008 at 8:41 am
what about are good friend coin up .75 already? would you short this
15Andrew
March 25th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Hey Tim, what do you think about CALM on the breakout? You mentioned it before in one of your blogs but, too expensive? Eggs producers count as real stocks? Short position is 84%. 16 days to cover. What do you think?
16Sequoia
March 25th, 2008 at 9:42 am
4 bad trades in a row. Your transparency is appreciable.
Would you please tell us what are your trading rules ?
1. What % of your capital do you place on a single trade?
2. How many trades do you have at the same time ?
3. Do you hold overnight or is it only intraday ?
4. Do you trade only on news or does technical analysis play a role ?
5. Where do you place your stop (if any ?)
Best regards from Paris
17NeilTheRealDeal
March 25th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Sequoia, read his blogs and go to his useful blogs section in the forums.
He doesn’t always trade everyday and its usually only 1 or 2 trades. He focuses on the right plays rather than a whole bunch of non-ideal ones. Right now TIM is small so holding overnight is risky for him. Technical analysis plays a huge role in the stocks he plays. He plays breakout stocks reaching new highs or in this week’s case recent highs. He doesn’t like to use stop-losses.
Tim obviously can answer that question better but generally speaking I think that’s accurate.
18NeilTheRealDeal
March 25th, 2008 at 10:37 am
the new highs being backed with the lack of news is usually ideal as well. It means there are pumpers out there pumping the stock up.
19coolguy
March 25th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Tim, HALO has attempted to sink twice today, just hit $6.70, likely to go down today. What do you think?
20timsykes
March 25th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
CALM–I don’t short perfectly uptrending fundamentally sound companies!
COIN–is it up exponentially in a few days? noooooooooooo, also all agri is just warming again
Sequoia–thanks to my transparency there’s no such thing as a bad trade…but telling everybody helps me focus on only the best, of which there are none right now…400ish dollars lost, boo hooo…for details do some DD, thats what this site is for, my book and my DVD
HALO shows no signs of weakness and yesterday’s spike has caught more than a few short sellers who aren’t as flippant as me
21WhiskeyMac
March 25th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
QBIK breakout at $1.98. Just needs a bit of volume and its off to the races.
22Andrew
March 25th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Sorry, I meant would you buy CALM on this breakout
23WhiskeyMac
March 25th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Andrew, CALM is a very profitable company. In the long run, one should profit from an investment perspective. As for the TIM school of penny stocking, CALM is unlikely to spike and fade with rapid changes in volume. I doubt its a TIM move.
24Banana(TIMBUCKS: $7)
May 18th, 2008 at 12:23 am
Hey Tim,
Thanks for the Chart examples. It helps understand how to watch stocks move via daily chart over minutes.