Tony Ellis, a graduate student, who says “ I traded before Tim’s book & instructional DVD, but my inspiration came from seeing Tim on WSW. I used O’Neil’s method before and while I made money it was too slow and inconsistent. I had virtually no experience in PennyStocking. Before trading I was a broker at Merrill.”, “Tim’s strategy is like free money. I’ve made tens of thousands of dollars shorting these stocks.” and “I’ve made over 10X DVD cost on NCEN the last week!” has quickly become the greatest student/master of Tim’s strategies, even while going to school!!!!, earning profits like $19,000 on COIN!!!, $6,500 in 1 day, sometimes only $3,500, or $3,800, or sadly only $2,000, but sometimes quickly like $1,200 in 3 minutes…all told, he’s up $50,000+ in the first 6 months of 2008!
Tim had a chance to interview Tony to learn more about his amazing story:
1. What’s your background? Did you trade much before Tim’s DVD?
Graduated from Mississippi State University in 2002 with degree in Professional Golf Management (no bullshit it’s a real major). After college went to work with Dillard’s Inc. as Sales Manager. Then took a job as a broker at Smith Barney and then was recruited to join Merrill Lynch. Left Merrill last July and began trading full time. I also am working on a Master’s in Finance and Economics from the prestigious Else School of Management. My first experiences trading stocks goes back to 1998 while in college. Had no clue what I was doing just buying into the hype and hoping to become rich. Actually had really good returns in 1999 and then lost most by April 2000. Started trading again in 2003 when I started work as a broker. Mostly buy and hold just a few trades per month. Averaged about 20% annually from that time until I started day trading (which is less than the Russell 2000 index). I followed the IBD CANSLIM system up until I found Tim last fall. Way too boring for me, a good stock might move 20% in two months where South Texas Oil Company (STXX) today moved almost 50% in two hours.
2. What are your main strengths and weaknesses as a PennyStocker?
Strengths: Spend extensive time hunting for good stocks to trade. Selling on the way up, covering on the way down and cutting losses quickly. If you sell on the way up and cover on the way down you can never lose money on a trade.
Weakness: Overtrading- ideal trades only occur so often and when you overtrade you are playing less than ideal stocks thus increasing the probability of losses.
3. What’s your ideal trade setup?
Buying breakouts: I look for stocks near 52 wk highs and that have history of greater than 20% intraday gains and are in a hot sector and great hype behind the stock. Selling breakdowns on stocks that are extended 30% or more from next support level on chart. Selling ridiculous spikes on stocks with horribly bearish charts ex. STXX today My absolute favorite trading supernovas- buy when they make new highs or break multiday resistance and sell when breakdown intraday and when they break multiday support. It’s hard to explain without charts. I’ll have to put together a few charts later explain more clearly or you could just buy Tim’s DVD!
4. Walk us through your routine, how many hours/day do you spend trading/researching?
I’m usually up about 3 hours before the market opens scanning news drinking massive amounts of coffee. I check message boards and news wires to see if anything is going on with stocks I’m watching and check a few charts. Then when premarket trading begins I’ll check stocks moving in premarket. During market hours I’m watching the highs/lows list to see if a stock I’m watching is moving. I’ll also check Tim’s blog and thelion.com. I check top % movers continuously throughout the day as well. I look a few charts after the market closes but kind use this time relax and clear my mind. At 9 PM I look at charts on barchart.com for new watchlist ideas. I look at the top 50 stocks between $2 and $5, top 50 between $5 and $10 and top 50 overall. I also look at top 250 volume % increases. Usually I’ll find around 10 to 20 stocks that look interesting and I’ll check the symbols on yahoo and google finance. I look at recent press releases, check earnings calendar, check message board posts and also glance at income statement and balance sheet (Don’t ask me why guess I’m trying to put my business school classes to good use). All together I spend about 4 hours a day outside of trading researching stocks. I could probably condense it into an hour and half because I screw around a lot.
5. What’d u think of the DVD pennystocking?
I don’t think it would be possible to recommend anything more highly. Pennystocking is where all my trading ideas and routines is derived from. It’s an excellent resource for any trader.
Wait til there’s more normal people earning these kinds of gains, as is seemingly inevitable!
Tags: Interviews, PennyStocking Profiles, Q&A
