Get Lazy… Lose Money

I’ve been salty all day because I bought a stock long when I meant to short it (forgot to select “short sell”, default is “long”. The result? Instead of gaining 3%, I lost 3%. A 3 percenter is a tough gain on one trade, so it really really angers me… plus, that a 3+3 = 6% swing down. Ouch!

Anyway, I partied way to much over the weekend and forgot to scope out the market and get a good feeling of trading. Oh yeah, and I was trading from my laptop in the living room instead of my giant monitor so it was very irritating switching between charts and webpages. Stupid.

… IT WAS NOT A GOOD DAY TO TRADE.

Whatever. I’m thinking of a way to make sure I select the correct trade action.

Here’s on the menu tomorrow:

• Gold, copper, silver! They are making a quiet comeback people. I’m especially eyeing Global Investors (GROW) which benefits from commodity rallies; they are a solid company that just tapped the billion dollar asset point in March or something.
• Internet ETF (HHH) – usually the tech stocks pick up toward the end of the year, but I’m thinking September. With that in mind, I may go for some January or March call options, while I short away the semiconductors for the rest of this month.
• Medifast (MED) – looks like it will sink or swim from here. It will either tap $14, or sink to single digits. The key is $12… how strong will the support be?
• Oralabs (OLAB) – well it’s a good thing I never shorted this anytime during the day yesterday. It’s a tricky one because the market cap and float are so tiny… someone with 10,000 shares can move this monkey. Anyway tomorrow I’m looking for a big drop.
• NVEC – I will make a second attempt to short this stock.
• Yamana Gold (AUY) – I want to go long tomorrow. This stock is good for another 5% for the rest of the month.

Comments »

The market had an overall soft profit taking sessions, but the stocks that rose the most last week were naturally the ones that got hit the hardest… tech, semiconductors. Interestingly, the stocks that did bad last week did extremely good today making the market seem deceptively okay… energy, metals, utilities.

Don’t believe the indexes today- today was worse than it looks.

Anyway, I did see some funkiness going on in the market. There was some giant gains in Nasdaq micro caps, like OLAB and CTIB.

Oralabs (OLAB) looks strange to me; it actually looks heavily manipulated (up 99% today!). Then again, with a market cap of 31 Million, it’s relatively easy to move this stock. I’ll be watching to see if history repeats itself and if this thing gets dumped. I tried about four times to short this stock but there were no shares available to short… tomorrow, I’m guessing a +20% drop.

NVEC– tried shorting this, but no shares left to short. There is a lot of profit takers out there, and the drying volume completes a bad combination.

Ford (F)- after rallying as high as $8.40 last week, the stock has now fallen back down and is worse than it was before the rally.

Medifast (MED) – as long as this stock can hold $12 (and it’s struggling so far), it could get ready for another shot up to $14.

Yamana Gold (AUY) – picking up steam again. There has been ridiculously large amounts of call option buying. Stock will test $10.30 sometime this week, and may be able to head toward new highs.

[picture above is a kitesurfer in Kailua Beach, on the East side of Oahu. That’s where I’ll be going, but not what I’ll be doing… too expensive]

Aetna (AET) – heading back down. Stock jumped high after reaffirming guidance. I don’t like stocks that jump on reaffirmations. That kind of stuff doesn’t tell us anything.

Rackable Systems (RACK) – this techy looks like a good short term short back down to $21.00. I also would short GRMN (stock just split), NETL (way ovebought)

Comments »

Just for the record, looks like NVEC is creating a top around $28. Could be a good swing short down to $26. Volume is dropping, but longs aren’t giving up their shares that easily today.

Comments »

This week I’m predicting (or at least will be watching for) a lot dead cats bouncing back down. It may not happen this week, but longs shouldn’t get too excited now that our market feeds on good news, and starves on bad news or no news (no news is bad news). Not much news out there. Anyway, I created a new page where I will post day trades if I ever make them. The link is on the right side of this page, and it’s called [Intuitive] Day Trades. If you’re too lazy to move your mouse to the right, you can just click [here]. Tomorrow I’ll be watching the following stocks:

• Dead cat tech stocks? … ATHR, TRID, TOMO, MFE (options accounting discrepancies)
• Rambus (RMBS) – still looks like a good deal to me
• Gold Kist (GKIS) – there’s a little chatter that the buyout may not go through. If that’s true… ouch! Stock is already up 50% from Friday’s after market.
• Retail stocks- I still really like this group. Lookout for AEOS, ANF, CHS (reports Thursday).
• OnTrack Innovations (OTIV) – beat up stock may see “possible bounce“
• Adobe (ADBE)- new swing long? This stock has quitely blasted off. I use Photoshop.
• Lowes (LOW) – not overly excited about it, but I’ll watch it anyway.
• Mills Corp (MLS) – ultra volatile stock. Don’t know which way it’ll go… may not go anywhere.
• Internet Holdings (HHH) – this internet ETF looks to be making a nice turnaround. I may consider buying calls just below the gap. Their holdings looks pretty solid.

[Picture above is a statue of legendary Hawaii surfer Duke Kahanamoku. No he did not invent surfing. Statue is located at Waikiki Beach. I just might bring some visitors there tomorrow.]

Comments »

Well that was fun. Not. I only traded for 1 hour, so I guess I can’t expect much. I did a day trade on MLS, shorted it, and was stubbornly determined to get 2% in 40 minutes… 40 minutes!! What was I thinking? Anyway the charts told me it would head that way, but all of a sudden at 15:43 the darn thing shot up like a rocket… it doesn’t matter how good you are, these things just happen, that’s why it’s important to set a stop loss. Anyway, I should have covered around $16.30 and took the 1%, but I got greedy. But I must say, I at least adjusted my stop loss from $16.75 to $16.50. I figured break even is better pyschologically.

• NVEC finished the whole day strong
• CTRN looks like a good short sell swing. I may short this on a sympathy day, maybe Monday.
• Energy stocks rebounded… saw that coming.
• I sold my AUY puts… 127% gain… but made about $100. Bwa ha ha!! Thanks Cramer for pumping this stock.
• MRVL got spanked today, which is a good lesson for everyone who wants to buy “turn around” stocks. Just because all these tech stocks bounced this week, doesn’t mean they are good stocks to buy. In fact, I’ll be on the hunt for these dead cats next week.
• The SOX recovered real well from profit taking today. I was expecting them to get hurt the entire day. Anyway, now we know who the real players are. Real: BRCM, NETL; Fakes: ATHR
• ILMN bounced today. Not sure what that means.
• Oil dropped below $70 for a few moments.
• AEOS looks to be the best retail stock out there. Chart is unbelievable, well at least looks much better than ANF.

[Picture Above: My friends and I were jumping off this rock yesterday at Waimea Bay. It’s about 20-25 feet high, depending on the tide. Super fun. Here’s another picture…]

Comments »

Another giant bid up in price that only took 3 minutes. Wow! Covering now.

Comments »