While I have no way to confirm or deny whether or not Mike actually has gone from $50,000 to $350,000 as he says HERE (and I had to really beg him to put a dollar figure on his gains), I, along with many others, have been in his chatroom several times when he’s made too many incredible calls to recount here…okay, maybe a little, stuff like THIS $14k day, and posts like THIS where he takes snippets from his chatlog to prove his abilities. A great deal of his success stems from buying stocks making intraday highs, taught to him by Muddy, but he freely admits he learned short selling from me so his accomplishments make me damn proud!
Add Mike’s remarkable success to that of grad student Tony Ellis who’s now up over $80,000 in the last few months and you might begin to understand why I have such determination to spread this strategy far and wide. Especially since students of my DVD PennyStocking know that I close my presentation by saying you can do better than me…might as well just call me Archie Manning…well maybe only in a few months when one of my students surpasses $1 million in earnings.
(And I feel perfectly comfortable saying that cuz these are real people making real money…not fake testimonials from fraudsters. Don’t believe us? Gooood. You shouldn’t trust anybody in this game, but be sure to stick around cuz this is just the beginning and you can see everyone posting their picks and plays day in and day out…viva la revolucion!)
Mike’s kind of a shy guy so we have no pic of him…the photo below is just what I imagine he looks like:
1. What’s your background?
I’m 48, worked as a machinist for the last 14 years, got laid off before
the start of 2008. When I got laid off from my job, I contacted my old
friend Muddy
whom I had kept in contact with over the years after meeting him in a
bookstore in the investing section of that store.
I told him I was finally going to try and get serious with his approach.
Up until then I used the same old same old stuff most everyone uses
and I basically stunk at trading that way.
So I asked for a huge favor in that after reading through his blog a
few times and trying to get the gist of it, would he mentor me for a
few weeks since we live so close.
He said he’d be glad to and his stuff absolutely turned my trading
around to where I am today. He also turned me on to you Tim, and
shorting the low priced ones.
2. Inspire us all with the story of your journey over the past 5 months!
The last 5 month journey has been an awesome ride but I see no way
that I can keep up the furious pace/focus with which I trade
especially with the chatroom.
3. What do you look for in your trades?
VOLATILITY VOLATILITY!
I want the highest average dayrangers 30 day period and 10 day
period on my main watchlists at all times.
I was given a scan by another which shows the number of times a stock
has run 10 to 19% in the last 100 days. Coupled with Mud’s suggestion
to add ADR(30) to that scan and using the scrolling Scottrade hod
list it adds up to some fun times.
By running these scans night after night, week after week, the
volatile ones just started to become burned into my brain,and now I
can spot them many times instantaneously as they hit that hod list.
I quickly look to see if the stock is volume spiking.
4. What % of your trades/gains are long vs. short?
The last month the ratio has turned as you say “to the dark side”.
I’d say about 60% short/40% long.
5. What resources do you use?
I use only a few basic resources…Scottrade platform, trade with IB
and love their premarket leader board, $9 basic subscription to
Stockfetcher to
run my scans, Prophet charts, newsletters for the pumps and of course
Timmay for the latest info.
6. You once posted on my blog “Never shorted successfully till you came
along and turned on the lightbulb!” How long had you tried short selling
before? Was it really as quick as turning on a lightbulb or was it a gradual
change from losses to profits?
I shorted for many years,about 10 and stunk at it.
Honestly it was as quick as turning on a lightbulb, I had always
shorted the higher priced ones usually in the $20 to $100 range before.
Then Mud told me about how he began shorting ala your style and with
my knowledge of volatile crap stocks under $10, my shorting really
took off and is responsible for a large portion on my gains the last
few months.
7. Judging from your chatroom, what’s the #1 mistake you think people make?
The #1 mistake is many folks don’t work too hard at whatever
method they are using. I was exactly the same way until I finally got serious.
Another mistake I think is not getting out of a losing trade quickly enough.
I know the PDT rule of under $25k forces many to hold but one can
always open up a few different accounts at different brokers to
increase one’s allowable daytrades.
8. What’s with you and the 13th floor?
One of my favorite bands is The 13th Floor Elevators
9. When i made $700,000 in 3 months in 2000, at first I was dazed
and confused…then i got cocky. What steps are you putting in place
to make sure that doesn’t happen to you?
Turning 49 helps a ton! Seriously, I’ve got my head on straight so
IF I can keep it up I’m sure I won’t get cocky.
10. What are you going to do with your winnings, besides pay a
shitload of taxes?
Probably buy another house and since Mud turned my trading around
and he is such an animal lover, I donate fairly heavy to the 4 animal
shelters around my way.
And to try the beat the “scalable” issues trading the kind that I
do, I put money from my profits into a mutual fund that I’ve had for
about 9 years now,which even in these market conditions hit its all
time high last week.
It’s CGMFX and it is one of a very few (I believe) mutual funds that
is allowed to go short.
I’m going to add if anyone is interested in the type of trading I do
to please read some of Muddy’s blog and THIS article I wrote where I
tried to explain what I do
Posted in Basics, Interviews, Milestones, Penny Stock Kings, So Hot Right Now