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Put Some Winners in Your Book

The morning has been all buyers, contrary to my original thesis.  The dip buyers are out and about, dressed like knights and swinging their rubber swords like drunken barbarians from northern Europe.  I have a couple of big wins occurring today, and thus I must pen a bullish post to stop this reflexive jerk higher in its tracks.

The rally has found sellers at the second important level I highlighted this morning.  A thin void in volume was left behind during the big selloff and thus far we’ve seen a rejection of the level by sellers.  The main question we need to be asking ourselves is what type of momentum environment are we in?  Buy the dip has been the script since the year started, but now we may be on the other side of the mountain. 

The main thing I’m on the lookout for today and the remainder of this week is range compression.  If we see the market stalling out and balancing into a tight range, we may be experiencing only a counter trend reflex rally.  Given the overall context of our market this year, and where we are in the trend, this is a less likely scenario, but it’s worth giving consideration. 

Yesterday and today (already) have featured wide range, snap-back, action.  If we see a tight day before the weekend, I think that’s your cue to take any hard earned profits on the long side and consider trimming exposure, adding some hedges, or shorting broken charts.

In the meantime, keep ZNGA, ANGI, TPX, KORS, and CMG on your radar.  I’m long all of them, and they all look ready to pump.  VHC is also wanting a pump.  I don’t have Z yet but stalking.

Note: as of this post, I’m 50% cash and up 2% on the day.  Call it crack rock portfolio.

Stay nimble, be water.

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Will $ZNGA Get ‘Sell The News’ Treatment?

This afternoon word came down that Governor Christie signed the online poker bill into law, effectively bringing the game and its betting back to the internet.  It’s long been speculated that Zynga would benefit immensely from the resurgence of online poker playing due to their existing community and platform.  Forget all that Farmville macaroni.  This is what the company is all about.

Leading into the event, players have been bidding the share price of ZNGA higher all year.  RaginCajun and I have banked a great sum of coin in the name already.  However, our coin pumping in ZNGA may have only been a first act.  If this stock gets moving, it has lots of open air above.

The issue with important news events that affect a company is whether or not the decision has been baked into the share price.  Often this is the case, and even when the outcome is favorable to what participants expect, the shares sell off.  Therefore it’s important to define your risk, regardless of the positive news flow.

I like ZNGA down to three, but that does not mean I have a hard stop in place at $2.99.  Instead I hone my attention into the stock as we near that price, look at how price behaves, and act accordingly.  I added shares this afternoon on the initial announcement, but I’m fully aware of my risk.  You have to ante up to see the flop, and I’m working with a big stack on this name.

ZNGA_FEB2013

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Find Your Next Investment Using You iPhone

Even with a realtor, I still love the information I can access on the go using the Zillow app.  Their strong mobile platform and disruption of the real estate industry has kept my attention on the company since the IPO.  After trading to an all-time high last week, the stock has seen aggressive selling.

Should we see buyers step in and buy this dip, I really like how Zillow is setting up on the daily chart.  I’ve played along partially with this name, riding the January rip and earning some nice coin along the way.  However, it pumped one day and I ran out of bullets, taking my final scale.

Since then, I have kept the name on my radar, hoping to see a buyable dip form.  Thus far, the dip we are seeing in price is violent.  However, gap fills of this variety tend to behave violently.  Looking back at how price behaved around $38, we can see it was a tough resistance.  I’m looking for that level to morph into support.  Should price stabilize and turn higher, it will threaten to break the steep trend lower.  The steeper the trend, the more violent the break:

Z_FEB2013

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Slammed About

We have certainly seen an uptick in volatility, yes?  I can say with the certainty of someone who “enjoyed” a 3% gyration in speculative funds that volatility has indeed picked up.  All of this movement occurred in my portfolio even though I started the day with around a 30% cash position.  It makes sense however.  I own some of the hottest potatoes out there.  Here’s an ode to my hot potatoes, may they be passed to another participant before exploding molten hot potato goo on my person.

First Solar, you were a good chart, perked up and dipped down, ready for a pump.  It’s a shame I top ticked you today, making my position full sized.  Thirty three seems as good a place as any to stage a rally from.  I’ll revisit you, I’m sure.

Cree, you are awesome.  Your lights are so bright!  And with such low energy consumption!  I don’t care what the others say about your death march higher.  They’re just jealous.  Go on with your bad self.  I wait with bated breath to see you trade around forty.  I bet I’ll buy more there.  I’m holding this one through the storm.

Zynga, you’re that person I never trusted, and you come through in a pinch.  I look forward to the days when my children hack into my bank accounts and use said pirated funds to gamble on your platforms.

Angie’s List, we all know your milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.  Do what you have to, as long as it’s not filling your entire earnings gap.

Chipolte, I’ll never trust you.  Not in a world with Cool Ranch tacos.  I’m watching you.

Temper Pedic, you have had the same product your entire life.  Your new product has a new name, same feel.  Market it well.

I’ve held other names, and continue to hold a few more.  They’re not crack rock like the above though.  I’m not going to downplay what we’re seeing here.  I don’t mean to be overly cheeky at this juncture.  I got slammed so hard this time last year I cringe when I see March.  I’ve raised my cash up to 50% by blowing out my GS, FSLR, TSLA, and scaling some ZNGA profits.  Let’s see what tomorrow brings us.

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No More Bullish Morning Posts

mullThe newest trend sweeping across my blog is the bullish morning post followed by a swift and smooth distribution in stocks.  I step up and buy something in size, like FSLR, wholeheartedly embracing where we are in this rally, and I get wet noodle slapped by the determined sellers.

There is never a reason to fight the market.  There is NEVER, a reason, to fight the market.  Just go with the flow, Joe.

Well you would think my portfolio was getting shredded to bits, given this 20+ handle move lower, but I seem to exist in some kind of microcosm.  I have a few winners buoying me into a nice green day.  Zynga of course helped immensely, I rang the bell and cashed in on some of that.  But I also have TPX aka the memory foam bed.  SIDE NOTE: these are nice beds.  RETURNING TO BANKING COIN: TPX is putting in a solid day, it needed to today or I was cutting the full size position out of my portfolio.  But here it is, going “onward Christian soldier” while the rest of the market dies a pagan death.  That’s quite curious because you get to wondering what this stock could do if a turnaround Tuesday develops.  I may make this a plus-sized model position by feeding it my DNKN cash from last week’s sale.

 I’m not being stopped out of anything yet, the day is still young.  But my least favorite position is Goldman slacks.  I already banked sic [sic] coin in this name.  I should just move along and plow it all into BX.

Sellers have done well.  They haven’t done great until the close us on the lows.  Otherwise, buy the dip mentality steps in.

UPDATE: Sold GS a few ticks > $150 – still feel like a boss.

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All About Location

good_location

If we are going to stage a low volume lift to new highs this week, you want to be in the names that stand to benefit from such a move.  You want to be in the charts with the best risk profiles and potential upside. 

With that in mind I sold TSLA when it was met by sellers this morning.  I didn’t want to over stay my welcome at casa de Musk.  I booked the gain and refocused the funds into a higher probability setup.  Today, that setup is FSLR.  Solar has been hot this year, but last week offered us discount pricing on the premium we’ve been dealing with in solar.  I bought First Solar in size.

ANGI and CREE are getting sold today and I couldn’t be more excited about this.  I need more of both.  I have a legacy ANGI position from before earnings, and I dipped my beak back into CREE Friday after selling my initial beak dip for a 12% gain.  I’m ready to buy these names on the cheap, stay tuned.

I locked in some of this massive ZNGA win again too. Still holding about a 3/5 sized position.

Find your location and position for the pump.  If we dive instead, you should have your risk defined.  Take your loss like a pro and move on.

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FACE NUMBER INTO THE WEEKEND

There you have it folks, this entire week was simply a warm up exercise to get everyone ready for a big pump.  I personally never stretch before a pump.  I don’t think you’re supposed to, but you may want to check with Rhino or Marc David as they actually know how to lift heavy metal.  I don’t stretch before lifting weights because it turns women off.  They don’t want to see your ugly man body stretching.  Stop it, gross.  Grunting and spitting mid lift, of course, is a robust mating call and will cause a flock of zombie-like women to ascend on your person.

We were buyers all day in the house of Raul3.  We bought a little over here (CREE), we bought a little over there (BX and GS), and we bought a little bit everywhere (CMG).  Being long MCD’s Chipotle in a world with Cool Ranch YUM tacos is HIGH RISK.  I don’t advise you do as you see here.  Before you know it our world will become overrun by packs of ravenous zombie people, raiding Taco Bells at 3am for five or six Cool Ranch taco treats.

Yes, I sold a little ZNGA today at 9:50am.  But how was I to know how the day would progress and complete?  That’s the essence of getting it while it’s here.  It is what gave me confidence all day.  Many people need alcohol or cocaine for confidence.  I need to trade well ONLY.  That doesn’t even mean make money, you dig?  Plus I still have a decent sized position for next week’s pump.  Now I go crush all weekend.

It’s been a fun week.  I hope yours was too.  Now we go into the weekend like good consumers.

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Betting on the Betters

I started my position back up in Goldman Sachs, aka your favorite senator’s bank, and Blackstone Group this afternoon.  I can’t help it.  When I see S&P marching onward and upward I have to get longer.

You must look at this blog and think, damn this guy has ADD, a flip flopping democrat.  I sashay in and out of names making my broker very happy.  Then I think, look at this crazy market, up up up! Check check check! It has me trigger happy is all.  It works for me.  What works for your average millionaire is to give their money to Blackstone, and let them do all the sashaying.  You catch my drift?

Everyone wants to sashay into stocks, whist lounging on their silk sheets from RH.  Know that Raul3 never sleeps on silk sheets, as they are disgustingly slippery.  I like cotton, 10,000 thread count or more.  And I really don’t like sleeping.  Five hours max when globex is running.  Irregardless [sic] brokerage houses and i-banks are hot like housing and social.  Thus I’ll pay along, until I don’t.

The S&P is putting in a balanced session, much like my morning plan called for.  This does not mean we are done going down.  Nor does it mean we go higher, lower, or sideways.  It just means the market is behaving, comporting itself like a performance enhanced cyclist.  Closing north of 1510 is like a fresh spray of deer antler.  Let’s see if the bull robots have it in them.

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Crushing Again

The dip in solar stocks is looking smooth and buyable so far.  I’m not kicking over shopping carts and earning the scoffs of housewives like when I go after the last rotisserie chicken at KRO at 8pm (near market close) but I am reading the labels and deciding if I want to add another solar to my cart.

As you know, I’m still long shares of FSLR.  I think this stock has big upside potential, but it may need a bit more time before setting up for another leg higher.  In the meantime, shares of SOL and STP are trading well.

I bought back my CREE position this morning.  Why sell a winner?  Stupidity that’s why.  I need to get better at sitting on 10%+ gains like the noble Senior Tropicana.  Other morning actions: I sold some of that ZNGA I added yesterday and paid for a weekend of booze, bars, whores, and debauchery in the process.  As Fly will tell you, market gains are to be used for the superfluous only.  Don’t be a bish about getting it while it’s here, boy.

Also, it turns out the earnings reaction in TSLA was, in fact, an over reaction. Developing…

Have some charts you freaks:

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Proceed With Pomp and Vigor

It was a pretty interesting day to be a trader.  The sellers made themselves known early by pressing their bets as my plan leaned toward.  I can’t see the market as clearly at 4:15pm as I can at 4:15am.  I don’t know, perhaps the fatigue of juggling corporate job, playing hand grenade hot potato with stocks, keeping tabs on my enterprise, and staring out the window at the salty landscape below fade my edge by afternoon.  But when I wake up and turn on the markets, they’re so clear, OLED HD clear.  You should read those AM posts, they even surprise me.

I was an early seller, cutting more losers out of my book.  I cut Citi, Facebook, and Cree.  Cree was a ten bagger.  It was a fourteen bagger last week, doesn’t matter.  Then I sashayed into SRS (ultra-short real estate ETF) on the first dip of the day and swung it trough-to-peak and sold like a boss.  It felt nice.  It felt nice booking two winners today.  You know what else felt nice?  Seeing Restoration Hardware continue to get the homo hammer to the head.  Winning while losing.  Facebook turned into tank book after I sold it too.  Hell, I’ll take it.

After all the above was said and done, I was around 60% cash.  It felt too heavy, having that much cash, so I went hunting.  One of the advantages I have being an independent trader is position sizing.  I can get in and out no problem.  One of the disadvantages, in my opinion, is I can end up having too many names in my book.  Too much to keep track of.  I was cognizant of this early this year.  My goal then was to gamble a bit, but eventually build into 5-9 core holdings.  Before yesterday I had fifteen.  So when hunting, I looked first at my existing positions, where they have gone since origination, and whether I could add.  I’ve booked two solid gains in Zynga and was sitting on a legacy position up over 30%.  Sure it could go back to its horrible 10% slasher-horror antics, but it shrugged these last two days off.  Thus I bought more.  This is however, slightly uncharacteristic of my style.  I usually wait for buyers to step in and confirm support.  That’s something I now have left unknown.  Thus the position is not full sized, but instead ¾.

Then I bought TSLA because the earnings reaction felt overdone, it’s near a risk I’m willing to wager, and there was heavy volume lifting the offer into the closing bell.

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