How Are Other Traders Doing Right Now?

Posted by Timothy Sykes on Sat 27th of Sep, 2008 09:16:19 AM
  Tags:

You guys know this has been my best trading week, personal gains of $2,500 and TIMalert subscriber gains in excess of $75,000–in the past year–see victory/testimonial post HERE–but how are other trades doing?

Well judging from THIS post, not too good. Trader Mike says:

Ah, fun times. I happily sat on the sidelines Monday & Tuesday. But yesterday I tried my best to find something (anything!) to trade and couldn’t find any setups I liked and I didn’t like how the indices were acting. Fun times. I’ll just stay in “preserve capital” mode until this madness passes.

In THIS article, Rev. Shark whines:

This is one of the most difficult markets I have ever tried to trade. Most of the experienced traders I know are frozen and doing nothing because the action is so random. I’ve heard this called a “freakshow” market because things are so far from normal. No one seems willing to trust a trade to work for more than a few hours, and that just adds to the randomness.

As both Alan Farley and Dan Fitzpatrick have said, we just have to wait it out. Just don’t lose money now, and sooner or later, we’ll get some better trading. I’d almost prefer a big one-day crash to speed things up, but I don’t think it is going to happen that way. We are going to slowly and painfully work through this.

Most importantly, don’t let this get you down. Protect your capital and stay patient. Better days will come.

Now I have bigtime respect for both these guys (although I don’t understand why neither are on a transparent platform like Covestor to prove that their stuff is worth listening to), but how the hell did they not see SIL? A friggin sketchy Bolivian metal play up 400% in 3 days on volume of 10 million shares/day….c’mon you lazy SOBs, it was the easiest ridiculously liquid “gimme” trade I’ve seen in years! In years!

Now, now, before I get too angry, I must remind myself, most “real traders” will never touch Penny Stocks/consider Pennystocking (seriously, you say those two words and they won’t even consider it, as if you were trying to get a lifelong Republican to vote for Obama aka the very thought of Penny Stocks goes against their core beliefs!) Most “real traders” are far too good for this sketchy niche. After all, most “real traders” lose money–at least 90% of them says study after study.

So don’t even bother telling “real traders” how much easier it is down here in the gutter. Just enjoy it and laugh yourself all the way to the bank. Obviously, there’s less “big” money to be made, but that’s this niche’s gift and its curse–poor you, you’re gonna have to suffer with easy profits of only a few thousand dollars every now and then.

Life could be worse, you could be a “real trader” who sees randomness everywhere and must focus on protecting capital.

Spread This Post:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • MySpace
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • TwitThis
  • Yahoo! Buzz

TIMstore Monthly DVD Specials:

See all TIM DVD specials HERE

  • Alsandair
    I'm wondering at what point these guys started waking up crying in their cheerios instead of making money. Crazy stuff... thinking that I'm making money while these renowned traders aren't. Good article Tim.
  • This month has been phenomenal for me, but the last few days have had me on the wrong side of a few trades. I like your buy in QCOR btw. I found it in August. http://www.stockrake.com/bought-qcor~2008~08.html

    It looks interesting again though.
  • I'm making money, and I'm hot on your trail, on Covestor.

    Why don't you make a couple of mistakes for a change so I can jump out of 4th place and ahead of you?
  • Trader Mike begins by filtering out stocks under $5. I like reading his blog but he's in another universe entirely.
  • Fus
    A lot of traders are having record profits due to the volatility . Some of those people commented above aren't really traders and more writers/bloggers.
  • Alex
    "Freakshow" is a very appropriate description of it. We've got S&P companies going below $5 and then making 100% swings in a matter of days. FRE & FNM have gained nearly 1000% off their lows. It would be hard to catch that entire run but there were lots of ridiculously easy momentum trades along the way. Traders need to learn to adapt quickly to rapidly changing market conditions. In the past month we've transitioned from stong bearish, to range-bound to strong bullish conditions, sometimes lasting only a day. The best trading skill to have for this market is the willingness to accept risk. Getting in at the riskiest moments turned out to be extremely rewarding in so many instances in the past month. I'm suprised to hear that these traders say they are sitting on the sidelines...that's the most ridiculous thing I've heard. As long as you have the discipline to cut losses, you should've been taking advantage of the volatility. If you are a swing trader or position trader (maybe that's what these guys are) you need to be willing to daytrade markets like this.
  • nojobreno
    the time to profit is when blood is running in the streets
  • Without a doubt, position and swing traders have to adapt. If they don't they are going to sit, for months and maybe more as opportunity goes by.
  • Adam
    Tim isnt that something, all these traders saying its to volatile and they're waiting it out. it amazes me that they themselves dont adapt to the markets. Maybe they are responsible for trading so much money that its very hard for them to move in and out without totally manipulating the movement. who knows, but im surprised when people say they're waiting it out, that sounds like a buy and hold person vs a trader
  • marmaladeskies
    i guess it depends what kind of trader you are. i day trade in the summer when i don't have school, but right now i'm a swinger/long term trader. if you're a day trader it actually may be a good time to sit out because some of the normal rules don't seem to be applying. since i'm going long term though i took the opportunity to pick up some APWR. i don't know what it'll do next week, but by january it should be in the 20-30 range. tim, i'm surprised that you picked it as a potential short. i know you care about the chart above all else but here is a case where the fundamentals mean a lot. can you explain your reasoning (seriously, i'd like to get out if there's good reason to). thanks
  • Zykosis
    nothing about the chart says it could be in the 20-30 range by jan.
  • the26er
    marmalade - its called China plain and simple....the olympics have exposed China for being some serious BS artists - faked gymnast ID's, lip synched pretty child so ugly child with great voice doesn't ruin perfect image, hiding a massive baby formula scandal putting thousands of babies at risk, padding earnings with 'related partys' revenue...it goes on and on...translation, no intelligent person believes a thing that comes out of a chinese mouth right now...APWR no exception - company became public with help from a criminal.....are the numbers true, or is it smoke and mirrors?? That's why it just keeps on dumping - it and all the other chinese companies...

    That's what I see going on!
  • marmaladeskies
    zykosis - this isn't a chart play, nor is it a "TIM" play. i know just as well as everyone else that APWR isn't a good day trade.

    the26er - paranoid bs like that based on nothing is what makes the stock a good buy. i'm not even going to respond to such slanted claims.. ergh
  • the26er
    Marm...nothing slanted at all - everything I posted has been discussed in media as factual with really, only the fake ID thing being a case of he says she says...
    All I'm saying is you can't win against general consensus.
  • marmaladeskies
    the26er - can you elaborate on APWR becoming public with help from a criminal? and i agree that people have been anti-china for a while, which is good, because it gives me a good price to get in it.
  • the26er
    Google Richard Propper and it will make sense...CFO of Chardan (the company APWR merged into), and he was also assisting with APWR IR for awhile (don't think he is any more)...

    It looks like he is no longer tied to them, but his brother may still be on board of directors - haven't checked lately
  • be-the-ball
    c'mon Tim. You know RevShark runs a medium sized hedge fund. You have said yourself pennystocking is not scalable! And of course he can't disclose his trades. He does have a sharkfolio on his site which is completely transparant. It's down 2% YTD.
blog comments powered by Disqus




Start Here

TIM Trades

View All
Date Stock Buy Sell Net
Nov 19 AENY $2.80 $3.02 $1148
Nov 18 NLST $4.16 $4.40 $947
Nov 18 IMGG $1.42 $1.64 $2094
Nov 17 NLST $5.04 $5.59 $2195
Nov 13 VRMLQ $21.50 $22.97 $2901
Nov 11 EONC $2.61 $2.80 $687
Nov 10 EONC $2.74 $3.36 $9784
Nov 6 QXM $4.31 $4.80 $1936
Nov 4 COT $8.66 $8.88 $642
Nov 4 QXM $4.61 $4.89 $822
Oct 30 DDRX $25.70 $26.53 $812
Oct 29 CTDC $4.00 $4.42 $781
Oct 26 AWSL $3.24 $4.10 $2516
Oct 23 RODM $5.27 $5.23 $301
Oct 22 AMLM $2.69 $2.97 $820
Oct 22 USEG $6.12 $6.09 $85
Oct 20 CBOU $8.93 $9.06 $243
Oct 16 VRMLQ $16.79 $18.65 $2773
Oct 13 YONG $11.05 $11.66 $1202
Oct 13 NPHC $0.59 $0.71 $583
Oct 12 IMGG $0.60 $0.70 $682
Oct 9 ZAGG $5.50 $6.10 $2380
Oct 7 GVBP $0.03 $0.27 $702
Oct 1 NPHC $0.70 $0.85 $1482

Total: $98,094 (681%)