iBankCoin
Home / Stock Picks (page 51)

Stock Picks

Last Week’s Trades

Anyone who is truly a fan of my blog or twitter stream gets bombarded with a lot of talk.  As amusing as it is for me, and let’s be honest this whole blog game is for my own betterment, it’s not easy to read my posts and swim upstream to find my trades and timestamps.  And I like my readers and I entirely expect you’re reading my carnivorous internal dialogue with the intent to bank some coin of your own.

By no means am I suggesting you buy or sell anything with me, but by reviewing actual trades an actual trader makes you may build your own understanding and thought process.

Without further commotion, here are my trades of the week and why:

MONDAY:

New Year’s Eve the market fired a cannon pointed square at the faces of shorts.  I had two cute short positions with a cute thesis wrapped behind them: short Macy and Saks.  I had a shit entry on Macy and it wasn’t hard for the market to squeeze me out.  I buckled (no BKE) and covered Monday.  This loser was a result of a bad entry and I knew it as soon as I put my position on.  Macy’s below $39.50 is still a short in my opinion.

January 2nd came and my long bias had me stoked:

WEDNESDAY:

I wasted little time, buying up shares of Zynga and Citigroup before 10am.  Remember early and often on the pumps, that way we can scale on the rip and lower our basis.

Into Tuesday’s close, I didn’t like the squeezing I was receiving in Saks so I covered.  This stock doesn’t appear as directionally biased lower on the charts, but it’s still a short worth considering on weakness.  Both Macy‘s and Saks are part of my thesis on disappointing consumption activity by the upper-middle class.

THURSDAY:

No trades, but Ragin and I were eyeballing tickers starting with the letter Z.  Being at the late end of a rally, we were looking at the Zee stocks because they rally last (I’m kidding).  But I’m not kidding about watching the Zee’s:

FRIDAY:

I sold my ATML.  I joke and say it’s a sacrifice to the rally gods, and in many ways it was.  But also this stock has been a beast.  When it was showing weakness during a strong day I closed out my runner on the name +23% from my December 11th purchase.  I still think the stock want MOAR, much more so I will keep my eye on it over the next few weeks in search of reentry.

Next I scaled 1/3 of my Zynga position.  We hit a logical level of resistance, an area where we should always fire a bullet at the market.  If you’re only holding a runner (final 1/3 after scaling) and you’re downright bullish you can keep the piece on just be sure to assess your risk.

Finally we saw Zillow make its move, tossing up a big middle finger to the shorts and jerking higher into the bell.  The stock pulled back just enough to let me in during the final minutes of the session.  My phone was running slow as shit while I rode a taxi through tunnels but I managed to buy the $29.40’s and ride a rip into the close.  I like being long this name into the gap even though the overall markets are insanely overbought.  It may get worse before it gets better on this trade, but things can get slippery inside gaps.

Those were my moves and the thoughts behind them.  Now I’m off to find a speakeasy, good day.

Comments »

Keeping Spirits Up Amongst Cretins

After getting completely obliterated by “the wrong agent” over at $SAVE this morning (may your grave be cold and wet asshole) and tossed into a wretched holding pattern which set my day back, oh about seven fucking hours, I received a blessing from the stock gods.

Perhaps it was my morning rally sacrifice, hoping to find favor in the eyes of Zenu:

Perhaps it was chasers getting their chase on, perhaps it was buying high probability chart patterns with sexy seasonality patterns and #SHOMPOLOGY stats.  Really none of these things matter.  What does matter good people is the fat ass pile of coin I pursed today.

After putting my feet back on the ground, I did what all to often has led to losses—I started trading from the back of a taxi cab.  But fuck I had too.  The plan going into today was to get in front of my computer premarket, that got fucked!  Do I moan and cry or adapt?  Exactly, I made a sacrifice and started iPhone trading.

Every time I checked my phone $ZNGA was up.  I wanted to scale, but there it was flirting with its daily high, so I let it simmer while I slept on the foulest shit scented carpets in Detroit.  Then I flew the fuck to the only city worse than mine, Baltimore, turned my phone back on while we drove around on the runways, again Zynga is HIGHER and so are my banks.  Zillow was sitting still but looking mean.

Then I finally get to my destination around 3pm and find myself with a few moments to actually gather my thoughts.  Mind you $ZNGA has become a #TENBAGGER at this point.  I manage to scale a piece off three cents from the highs.  Then I buy Zillow and it rips into the close.  All.too.good.

Maybe I could lose sleep this weekend?  Negative, sleep not on the docket.  I may get poleaxed Monday by these gay short sellers getting cute with INSANELY OVERBOUGHT SHITTY BANK ticker $C, but fuck them.

All I know is the market isn’t this easy often.  When it is, you press your fucking positions and bleed these fucking turnips dry.  Use the 9ema, it’s our good friend.  Enjoy your weekend and assume I’m enjoying mine enough for the whole fuck lot of yous.

Comments »

Grinding Higher

Despite overbought conditions and some anti-QE jawboning from The Fed yesterday, most of the market continues to grind higher.  A pat on the back form Goldman was enough catalyst to lift shares of Citi Group to even loftier overbought levels.  And overall the financials continue to behave well and it could be keeping a steady bid in the marketplace.

I’m losing coin on my LULU shares and zooming out to the weekly chart it looks like momentum is slowing to the upside.  I may regret not selling today, but I want to see about getting better prices early next week.

We’re not seeing the island reversals many expected and the small caps continue to rock higher suggesting risk tolerance.  My only action today was to sell my ATML runner as a sacrifice to the rally gods.

Completely Aside:  Spirit Airlines went out of their way this morning to catch my spirit and funnel it into their clunky jet engines, rendering me without flight.  The kind people of Southwest who seem to love me have shoveled my remains off the tarmac and sent me on my way.  Rot in hell Spirit Airlines, trade to zero.

Comments »

Taking Flight

Traders who came into today’s trade net long are celebrating a massive move higher.  We’re seeing overbought conditions and traders scaling long exposure all across twitter.  Traders who joined the party after the open are mostly flat, and maybe a little nervous.

Saks (SKS) started firming up into the closing minutes and I closed out my short position for a small loss.  Small position, small loss.  Overall I’m still not constructive on department stores but I’ll wait for their technicals to deteriorate.

Aside from dumping my short, my only other actions were to buy C and ZNGA.  Neither name banked any intra-day coin, but I’m betting short term ZNGA will and intermediate term C WILLx2.

I was up over 10% on CEDC this morning only to see half of those gains erased and also caught a large fade in SINA , but I’m not sweating it much.  This may be a sell the news event and I may get stopped out, but I’m working to build into some core positions and HOLD. Then I’ll take the guns out and gun sling using only 20% of my portfolio, tap dancing across mine fields whilst smoking a COHIBA for your enjoyment. 

I like 2013 so far.  It’s my busting out year, I’m not sure I’ve brought this to your attention yet, but it’s divisible by three.  And years ending in “13” are only divisible by three every three hundred years SO YOU’S BETTAH USE IT WISELY. Take flight, be water. Take flight, be water. Take flight and be water, like a blizzard cloud.

Comments »

Let it Simmer

The strong gap higher this morning pulled back once and pumped higher in a very violent manner.  Since then, we’ve seen the S&P gently fade off 8 handles from the high.  I used the early morning dip to purchase shares of Citigroup and Zynga.  Both of these buys have moved below my basis, but have provided no reason to sweat.

The morning chatter has all focused on this gap and hypothesizing how others are positioned.  It’s really good fun to speculate on the positions of other investor’s books and it’s an interesting piece of context.  I’m still cueing off the SPY chart I posted this morning, and where we are.   This gap is pretty ugly and gaping, and it makes the chart look more like an individual stock’s earning surprise than an entire index.  It’s very possible we work to backfill these levels, but first the bears need to recapture 143.50 on the SPY, a price which would reclaim about 50% of the candles from the prior swing high.  It’s my bias line for the time being.

Buying Citigroup up high here today is at risk of riding peak-to-trough, thus I only bought a half-position.  I won’t know if I’m wrong on the swing unless we lose $39.00 so I had to position accordingly.  This also gives my dry powder to buy more should we see a pullback materialize and stabilize.

Interesting weakness in department stores and other apparel companies like LULU who saw their early pop faded hard.  I’m not making too much of these developments, nor any developments until I see how the afternoon trade pans out.

As a swing trader, the close is everything.  It finalizes or negates any chart setup on the daily timeframe.

Comments »

100 Bear Coffins

Happy New Year and it’s time to address the important matter of a market with a deal.  I’m currently 40% long, 2.5% short, and cash heavy.  The stance made sense considering the headline risk coming into today’s trade.  Now I must pick spots to add long exposure.

The anatomy of this move could have many participants caught short or downright underexposed.  Pare that with the jostling of many allocations and the environment is ripe for some big moves higher.  I’m using a Keltner channel on the SPY ETF to give me an idea of the range we could see in the intermediate term.  Expecting an open near 144.50 I see room to the upside:

I’m not going to get too fancy, I have a few names I like and most of them are my current longs: ATML, CEDC, FB, GS, LULU, and SINA.  I intend to ratchet up my net exposure by adding to a few of these names, while searching out a decent entry on C and few short squeezes.  I also have to manage my way out of this SKS short.

The cash market hasn’t had a chance to react to this market, so I’ll watch the first half hour of trade to determine aggression.

http://youtu.be/WtqS4WX4urg

Comments »

2013 Predictions

Media will continue to report mundane news with a big surprise pitch.

Algorithmic trading will dominate the market more than last year.

The occasional glitches will be scolded, unless the market jerks higher.

Winter will be hard to shake in the Midwest and Northeast.

Cats will continue to dominate video and page view counts on the internet.

Tea will get way more popular.

Synthetic drugs (think bath salts) will make national news, again.

My 2013 stock of the year, Citi (shitty) bank, will perform an esoteric defiance of gravity:

Comments »

Getting Keith-ed and Vodka

Stocks are behaving well today and trading higher as they should as wealth generating vehicles.  We have seen more than a few short squeezes as the threat of a swoosh lower pared with the fiscal cliff uncertainty seems to have lulled bears into their favorite shorts.

I’ve spent most of the session getting Keith McCulloughed by my portfolio of 7 longs and 2 shorts.  I found the circle jerking action quite amusing for a few hours until my $M short decided it wanted to claim my middle finger.  Instead of attempting to punch the Macy-gator with my right hand, I simply aided the beast, and cut the finger loose.   I retain my $SKS short as my cost basis is much more in line with risk.  This could all change, but for now I’ll let my position simmer.

Beta neutrality aside and returning to the task of banking coin live for the good people of the internet, may I offer an interesting story to follow in 2013:

Central European Distribution Corp (CEDC) distributes alcohol in Poland and Russia and a few other forsaken lands in Eastern Europe.  They also make vodka.  They’re based in Jersey, where some of Amerka’s best criminals live.  Their stock price has been obliterated over the last two mismanaged years. 

Here’s where it gets interesting–Stereotypical (and awesome James Bond villain) Russian billionaire Roustam “Your board of directors will now all be Russian” Tariko has taken the reigns of the company.  He owns Russian Standard, which both produces vodka and is a BANK.  ONLY IN RUSSIA baby!  If you think I’m overplaying the characteristics of this guy, check out his Q&A with the Financial Times.

I won’t sit here and tell you this stock is a sure win.  For all I know, it could trade down to zero before I have time to unwrap my 2013 calendar.  What I do know is where price is, back above its moving averages and in an easy-to-manage risk zone. 

One of the bitterest disputes in the world is who makes the best vodka.  Russia and Poland both know they’re the best.  I can’t wait to see how this hostile dispute plays out.  In respect to the vodka gods, your homework assignment is to master the eyeball Paul.  Good luck.

Comments »

Lululemon Interest Pumps Up Into Holidays

When a product or company has a curious name like Lululemon, a name unique to a query such as a Google search, we can gain insight by looking at Google Trends. Notice the steady increase in search volume for the name. I know it’s only one data point, but it’s a big one. Searching for a company through Google is often the first step to making a purchase. This steady rising chart is one any business would be proud to call their own:

More importantly, check out the fastest rising searches similar to a lululemon query. Chicago, where people are steady blowin’ money fast:

The search interest is much more steady than other female apparel trends, like Decker Outdoors’s Uggs:

I bought several family members Lululemon gear and they had no idea what the company was. Nowhere near saturation, and steadily gaining the public’s interest on Google. Those are two quality ingredients in the growth recipe.

Full Disclosure: I own shares of LULU and find their pants to enhance the female physique (read: booty).

Comments »