Owner: Bullish Jim's Trading Blog URL:http://www.stockbuddytrades.blogspot.com Join Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 19:42:37 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Chronicles of a stock market dabbler. Blog covers my newbie attempts at short term and day trading and contains my general stock market insights. Site statistics:Click here
Just got in CPKI for a day trade... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 ...at $33.25. Looked like a blow off bottom to me. We'll see how it goes.Disclaimer: This is not a recommendation to buy anything. Read more:day trade
Boring Day, Isn't it? 1970-01-01 00:59:59 * If my portfolio is any indication, the most boring stuff is doing well today. One of the most boring names in my blog portfolio, VAR is flying today. And some of the most boring names in my core portfolio (WLP, WAG, USB, PNR) are all chugging along nicely on the day as well. Go figure.* I still hold a good chunk of oil stocks in my core portfolio as sort of a geopolitical hedge. One thing I am doing differently though versus what I did in 2006 is maintaining stop loss orders on all of them. If you aren't paying close attention to those stocks they'll nickle and dime you to death. Had I maintained trailing stops on stocks like COP in 2006 I would have made a pretty silly return on it. For the most part, although I would buy more when they got crushed and sell a little after a big run, I basically just rode the oil stocks up and down all year. Pretty silly when you think about it.* Speaking of boring, that stupid little 50 cent pop in MSFT yesterday cost me a bunch in my Feb Read more:Boring Day
Bought AVID 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I just bought AVID at $33.42 for a swing trade. I like the positive momentum it has shown this week after a pretty long downturn on the weekly chart. I also like that the support it showed previously at $32.50 appears to have occurred again. I'll put in a stop loss order and give the current short uptrend a chance to continue.Disclaimer: This is a not a recommendation to buy anything. It is merely what I am recklessly doing with my own hard earned dollars.
Day Trades 2-16-07: Lethargic pin action 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I found a nice BOB setup in California Pizza Kitchen (CPKI) this morning and decisively pulled the trigger. Then it immediately went to sleep on me.I bought as soon as the 10:30 bar printed at $33.25. It rose about a nickel or so and then sat there for hours on end. I tightened my stop to break even early in the afternoon and waited for something to happen. It never did and I was stopped out in the 3:30 bar at $33.257. That fraction of a penny gain covered a nice portion of my commission on the trade.On a far more interesting note, I am a big fan of CPK's Hawaiian Pizza. There's nothing fancy about it. It's just ham and pineapple...you know, the standard Hawaiian stuff. But it's good with a capital G.Disclaimer: This IS a recommendation to order CPK's Hawaiian Pizza. However, you should do your own due diligence. Should you order it based on my recommendation and end up not enjoying it, that's tough luck. Read more:Day Trades
Portfolio as of 2/16/07... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 It was a pretty solid week for my blog portfolio, posting an increase of 2.4% on the week. This compares favorably to the 1.9%, 1.8%, and 1.5% gains posted by the NAZ, DJIA, and S&P 500, respectively. I always want to beat the averages but I pay particular attention to how I did during weeks when the markets were either up or down significantly. Over the long term, I think the real opporunity for me to shine is to outperform during these more volatile weeks.I feel pretty good about the makeup of the portfolio at the moment. I saw some nice turnover in the form of profit taking (VSEA) and some new buys that I feel good about (AVID, CWTR). And, most importantly, I actually made money with my day trades this week!Speaking of day trading, I am now averaging a 0.7 beers per day gain from day trades. This is a bit shy of my 1.0 goal, but I am still only two weeks into this experiment. I've enjoyed it so far and will continue to sneak in a day trade here and there when I can.As always Read more:Portfolio
Day Trades 2-13-07: Two Good Setups and a Rookie Mistake... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I had three day trades today and only one was profitable. Luckily my two losses were each smaller than my one winner, so my net loss on the day was just 1.2 beers.The Good One:This is a nice blow off bottom sequence from 11:45 to 12:15. I love the 12:00 bar with its really big volume and long tail. Then the 12:15 bar was up nicely so buying was a no brainer (even for me). I bought at $17.98 and was stopped out at 1:19 at $18.33 for a decent 36 cent gain. I once again was a bit obsessive in raising my stop loss almost constantly as the stock rose, but it worked out OK because the bounce was pretty short-lived. This trade netted 3.3 beers.The Good Setup that didn't work out:FSLR gapped up huge at the open and the first two bars looked like the rise might continue. Using the Trader X approach I bought for $43.15 as soon as the second candle printed. Unfortunately the stock immediately pooped out and my stop was hit a whopping 3 minutes later at $42.81. If this exact setup comes Read more:Day Trades
, Rookie
, Mistake
, Two Good
Sold VSEA... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 We've gotten some silly pops in lots of stocks today and the pop in Varian Semi (VSEA), ostensibly due to an upgrade to "buy" by UBS, is one of the sillier ones. Therefore in keeping with my "selling strength" mantra, I cashed out.The skinny:* Bought VSEA on 1-29-07 for $41.98 for a swing trade.* Sold today for $46.83 for a gain of 11.5% (annualized return of 262%)With a 9% pop today I am basically betting that cash will outperform VSEA in the near term. We shall see.
Jumped in ONXX for day trade... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 ...at $25.37. Details and chart later. I immediately got lucky on this one...Disclaimer: This is Not a recommendation to buy anything. Read more:day trade
ONXX Day Trade 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I was stopped out while I was writing the last post for a nice gain. This one worked exactly how it is supposed to and it was really invigorating.I used the Trade
r X method of entering when a 15 minute bar closed above the range of the day's first 15 minute bar. And in this case it really took off on me.The skinny:* Bought at $25.37 at 10:00 (and 8 seconds)* Kept raising my stop (every 30 seconds or so!) when it immediately kept rising. I was stopped out at 10:08 (8 minutes later!) at $26.37 for a net gain of 10 beers! That's a 4% gain in 8 minutes. Woo hoo!THAT is why I want to be a trader. That was friggin awesome...On Edit, Here's the chart:
LQDT hammered today... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Oh, the dreaded secondary offering...I'm watching for a blow off bottom but it's not quite there yet. Given the action late last week after earnings came out, I would LOVE it if bottoms around $19. We shall see.Disclaimer: This is not a recommendation to anyone to buy anything. Read more:hammered
Day Trades 2-13-07: Newbie trader on a roll... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 As a total novice to day trading, I really only have two tools in my toolbox at this point. The first is the basic Trader X method where I look for stocks that gapped up at the open and buy them when they close above the high of the first 15 minute range. This method worked beautifully this morning with my ONXX trade.The second method, which I learned from my mentor Marlyn at Filtering Wall Street, is to buy stocks that have been crushed and then show a blow off bottom. I used this method this afternoon with LQDT.Looking at the 15 minute chart for LQDT, the blow off bottom took its time arriving with long red bars on big volume from the 12:15 through 1:30 bars. The positive 1:45 bar told me it was a blow off bottom and I immediately bought for $19.44 in the 2:00 bar. When the 2:30 bar looked toppy to me I narrowed my stop loss order to less than a dime and was eventually stopped out at $19.77. This was a net gain of around 3 beers.For the day that is a net gain of just less than Read more:Day Trades
, Newbie trader
Blogging Anonymity 1970-01-01 00:59:59 To be or not to be...anonymous? I would love to read what other investing bloggers have to say about their decision to either remain anonymous or to disclose their identity in their blogs. When I look at my blog links to the right I see a pretty good mixture of anonymous bloggers such as him and her and this guy as well as identity-disclosing bloggers such as Bill, Tim, and Ross. Bill, by the way, holds the disctinction of being the only one of my blog links that is blocked by my employer's firewall. It must be because of the use of profanity such as "doodah"...I'd be interested why individuals made the decision they did. And I'd love to know whether anyone who isn't anonymous regrets the decision to disclose. And, from anonymous bloggers I'd be interested to what extent you are anonymous.For what it's worth, I remain largely anonymous because I am employed full time and collecting a paycheck while I occasionally steal a minute or two (or 60) trading and blogging. I say "l Read more:Blogging
, Anonymity
Spotlighted! 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Hey, I'm moving up in the world! I've been spotlighted today at Trading Goddess' site. I'm truly honored...In what can only be described as shameless and self-congratulatory, I am linking to another site to brag about them linking to me. Sheesh, if people are going to link to me I'm going to have to stop making so many dumb trading mistakes. Yeah, but the posts about stupid trades are my most entertaining ones!
Portfolio as of 2/23/07: Ho Hum Week... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 The major indices didn't move a whole lot this week and neither did my blog portfolio. My portfolio was up just 0.24% on the week while the NAZ, DJIA, and S&P posted returns of 0.96%, -1.16%, and -0.37, respectively.My blog portfolio now stands at +8.77% for 2007 thus far.The portfolio as of today: Read more:Portfolio
Just bought Walters... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I just bought WLT at $25.00 for a short term/swing trade. I've been eyeing this one for a couple weeks as a high quality beaten up stock. Insiders are buying its shares as well as others whose opinions I respect. And I very much like the blow off bottom exhibited on the weekly chart. This should be fun. I'll use a stop loss order, of course.Disclaimer: This is not advice to anyone to buy anything. Do your own due diligence. Read more:Walters
Google vs. Yahoo 1970-01-01 00:59:59 This is a simple and sincere question: Why would anyone buy Yahoo
over Google
?You can certainly argue if you wish that both are overpriced. I don't necessarily agree, but I admit that these are not cheap stocks. My question is really more of a relative value question. Given that GOOG is the superior company by every imaginable fundamental metric I just can't understand why someone would buy shares of YHOO instead of GOOG.The scoreboard:Trailing P/E: YHOO 62; GOOG 47Forward P/E: YHOO 44; GOOG 25Return on Equity: YHOO 8.5%; GOOG 23.3%PEG Ratio: YHOO 2.3; GOOG 1.0Operating Margin: YHOO 14.6%; GOOG 33.5%Quarterly Revenue growth (yoy): YHOO 13%; GOOG 67%Quarterly EPS growth (yoy): YHOO -61%; GOOG 177%Looking at the scoreboard, this game is a blowout! By all measures, Google is bigger and more profitable and is growing at a much faster rate. Google has a better balance sheet, better ROE and dramatically better operating margins. Not to mention, Google has a history of upside surprises whil
Unfocused Ramblings 2/24/07... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I am such an idiot that it took me almost five months to figure out how to do bullet points in my posts. Consider this fact when deciding whether to attach credibility to anything I write.I highly recommend you check out Adam's CNBC Viewer's Bill of Rights. It is dead on and very funny, to boot. While I admit that CNBC annoys me on a regular basis and is totally ripe for ridicule, I can't get myself to switch to Bloomberg. I find the tone of Bloomberg to be almost somber. Don't you think? I take the subject of making money seriously, but it shouldn't be depressing.When I sold VSEA ten days ago I was making the bet that cash would outperform it in the near term. I was wrong, by the way, as the stock has risen another 5%+ since I sold. That said I will take that 11.5% gain every day of the week.Yes, it is targeted at propeller-headed politics geeks like me. That said, I am going to keep plugging Bloggingheads.tv until I convert at least one reader. I find the low tech wonkiness of t Read more:Unfocused
, Unfocused Ramblings
Arghhh... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Why won't Ameritrade let me put in a stop loss order on an option position? What would have been a ridiculously good gain on my MSFT puts is now just a good gain. Don't they know I don't have the discipline to manually sell something when it goes in the crapper? I sold 40% of my MSFT puts at $0.70 this morning by the way. I'll summarize the trade later as I hope to get rid of the rest at some point today.I had one small loser day trade in FSLR that I'll summarize later as well. I think I played it right but it didn't work out. Took a small loss just like I'm constantly saying I'm going to do when a trade goes south. Thanks to my stop loss order...
Whole Foods Flying... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Being the shameless bottom feeder I am, I couldn't stop myself from buying WFMI for my core portfolio back on November 3rd when the stock took a nice little 20% haircut in one day. I recklessly reached out and caught that falling knife at $47.94 per share. And then I basically forgot about it. Since then, as you can see from the chart, I've ranged from a few % up on the stock to as much as 10% down at various times.Then I woke up this morning to the news that WFMI is acquiring OATS. And now both stocks are flying. With WFMI up over 10% on the day I am now sitting on a massive 6% gain in the stock as a reward for my lack of attention to it.So here's where I get a little confused: WFMI is paying an 18% premium over yesterday's closing price in OATS. And as a result, OATS is up 17% on the day. That part makes perfect sense. But why is WFMI up 10% on the day? Are there that many synergies involved in the merger of the two that WFMI can pay a big fat premium for something and Read more:Whole
, Foods
, Flying
, Whole Foods
Apple has been berry, berry good to me... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I am currently in Apple
for a short term trade, having entered on 2/9 for $83.54 per share. It looked at the time like it had formed a bit of a base at $83. So, given how good this stock has been to me over the years, I pulled the trigger. By the way, I originally bought AAPL in 2003 and held it through fall of 2005, gaining around 500% on the stock. Again, it's better to be lucky than good sometimes. And be there no mistake about it, I was lucky on that one.Well, we got a nice little pop yesterday. That $3 gain on the day felt like old times. I've raised my stop this morning in order to effectively book some of that gain. That said, I'm willing to give it a little bit of room to go to $100 if it so chooses. Perhaps this morning's news of settling the iPhone dispute with Cisco will spur the stock even higher. We shall see...(I'm putting this paragraph in parentheses because I'm going to write about the dreaded "F" word for a second. That's right: Fundamentals. I avoid
Unfocused Ramblings: Long Weekend Edition 1970-01-01 00:59:59 * Monday is yet another market holiday? What's with the banker's hours and public employee holiday schedule on Wall Street? As an East Coaster I would definitely like to see regular trading hours extended by a couple hours in the morning. I have my doubts whether it will ever happen.* It seems that AMD, with their oh so ugly chart and cash shortage may be bought out by private equity. Does anyone else remember way back in 2005 when AMD was supposedly eating Intel's lunch? Not that Intel is a rock star at the moment either...* Here's an interesting premise: this blog is dedicated to short-selling Cramer's picks. The anti-Cramer back-lash seems to grow just a little bit more each day.* Housing starts plunge! Investors must think the bad news is baked in at this point, though. Evidence the charts of LEN, KBH and TOL since the beginning of 2007. You could have made a very nice return on those stocks despite almost constant doom and gloom about housing in the news. It's a go Read more:Unfocused
, Unfocused Ramblings
, Weekend
, Edition
, Long Weekend
Cramer,Cramer, Cramer.... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 In this little video clip from thestreet.com Cramer
says he had to downgrade Coldwater Creek (my swing trading turd) at $20 because, and I quote, "the company might be falling apart". Keep in mind that I'm not in love with this company, but that quote is complete hyperbole. There is simply no evidence that the company is falling apart and he should know that. I find Cramer as entertaining as the next guy but he has a lot of influence on a lot of investors and yet he pulls things directly from his arse at times. It's irresponsible.
Are you Sirius? And other miscellany... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 * No day trades today. I played hooky and went sledding with my family instead.* I'm reading that the FCC may block a merger between XM and Sirius
. I know the FCC's intention is to protect consumers from monopolistic pricing practices and I understand that goal. If I were someone like Cramer who just throws my uneducated opinions around I might say that I see some real efficiencies in these two companies merging. Heck, the newly combined company will ultimately file bankruptcy just once rather than twice for the two separate companies. Oh no I didn't...* Speaking of combining two weak companies and expecting the sum to be one strong company, I just heard on CNBC that speculation is growing about a possible Chrysler/GM pairing. (Hey, why not throw Ford in the mix as well!) I guess those thinking of combining GM and Chrysler can hang their hats on the marriage of mediocre Sears and God bloody awful K Mart somehow resulting in a Wall Street darling. I still don't get that one.
Day Trades 2-21-07: A bit sloppy 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Alright, I'm still not very good at this whole day trading thing quite yet. I took three trades on the day and made money on just one. I guess the good news is that my one winner (+4.7 beers) was a little bigger than my two losers (-3.2 and -3.3 beers). The net on the day of -1.7 beers lowers my average net per day to 0.4 beers versus my goal of 1.0.The good one:NYNY exhibited a fantastic blow off bottom from 10:15 to 10:45. I broke the rules in that I jumped on it way before the 10:45 candle printed but I got lucky this time. I bought at 10:48 for $11.94 and was stopped out in the 11:15 bar at $12.18.The one where I was impatient and then hesitated to buy:My ACOR buy today is another one where I abandoned the playbook because I was impatient. I switched to a ten minute chart because the 15 minute wasn't telling me what I wanted it to. Then the blow off bottom happened in the 10:40 bar and I waited way too long to buy. I bought at 10:57 for $22.33 and was stopped out at 11:12 Read more:Day Trades
Amazing Shrinking P/E Ratio Screen 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Alright, I'll admit that there is nothing whatsoever amazing about my AmazingShrinking
P/E Ratio
Screen. It's merely my 967th different attempt to identify high quality, beaten up stocks. And it arose from my fascination with Google's shrinking P/E ratio in my Google vs Yahoo post.This particular screen places a big premium on growth and steadily falling P/E ratios. In this screen I required volume over 200K per day and the following:Year over year revenue growth of at least 40%;Year over year EPS growth of at least 60%;Trailing P/E ratio higher 1 year ago than it was 6 months ago; Trailing P/E higher 6 months ago than it was a month ago;P/E higher a month ago than it is today;And, in order to weed out companies whose declining P/E ratio was due to declining forward EPS, the forward P/E ratio had to be lower than the current P/E ratio. Given that Google was my inspiration for doing this screen, it shouldn't be surprising that #1 on the list is none other than good old GOOG. Here a
True Religion: A Fundamentalist Perspective 1970-01-01 00:59:59 That is a way above average headline for me, I must say. But I digress...The actual purpose of this post is to follow up on the fascinating case of True Religion
Apparel, which showed up in my Amazing Skrinking P/E Ratio Screen post the other day. Like the other eight stocks that showed up in that screen, TRLG is growing EPS and Revenues very rapidly and yet their P/E ratio just keeps getting lower and lower. What we have here is a company whose earnings and revenues grew over the past year at a clip in excess of 200% and yet their trailing P/E has shrunk from a modest 28 to a minuscule 16. Given a relatively modest 22% estimated 5 year annual growth rate, this stock is trading at a laughably tiny 0.69 PEG Ratio. Clearly, the market as a whole is betting that TRLG will miss these EPS growth estimates by a mile.And short sellers are betting heavily that TRLG is going to fail, with an amazing 44% of float sold short. That's 16 days to cover, my fiends. That puts TRLG in the company of s Read more:Fundamentalist
, Perspective
, True Religion
Stopped out of VOL... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I was stopped out of VOL this morning at $35.94 for a loss of 3.8% in three weeks. That's fine. I had tightened the stop recently, almost daring it to trigger. This is an interesting moving average test case as the stock has crossed below the 20 day EMA again (which it has done repeatedly) but is still above the 50 day SMA (which it has not crossed below in months). The 50 day SMA is still a buck below the current price so I'll be watching for a bounce there. Regardless, it's headed in the wrong direction at the moment.I also had a couple of crappy day trades that I'll write about later. This has turned out to be a better day to be short than long, that's for sure.
NAZ down 50+ and stopped out of BLUD 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Careful what you wish for, I guess. Like everybody else I've been looking for a short term pullback to get prices down to a more buyable level. Well, this might be the start of such a pullback.I was stopped out of BLUD at $29.41 as it was completely pummeled right from the opening bell.The skinny:* Bought BLUD on 1/30 for $31.59.* Sold today at $29.41 for a 7% loss.
Bought BLUD back for $29.74 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Looks like a bounce on the 10 minute chart so I picked it up for a swing trade. Probably a mistake but my gut instinct is that the bulls are going to buy up this dip pretty quickly.Disclaimer: This is not a recommendation to buy BLUD. Do your own due diligence.
In XING for a day trade 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Just bought XING for $17.49 for a day trade
. Every chart I look at looks exactly the same- long red bar at the open and steadily climbing green bars every since.Disclaimer: This is not a recommedndation to buy anything.
Recommend Site To A Friend
