Blog Archives:

A Review Of My Swine Flu Trades, Made A Thousand Bucks But Mostly Screwed It Up!

Posted by Timothy Sykes on Wed 6th of May, 2009 03:00:56 PM

The trades and new TIMalert subscribers needing guidance have been coming in hot and heavy lately and I’ve had very little time to actually sit back and reflect, so I’m doing that here now:
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How I Lost Some On China Finance Online Co. (ADR) (JRJC) & Zagg Inc. (ZAGG)

Posted by Timothy Sykes on Mon 16th of Feb, 2009 08:45:07 AM

Straight from the TIMalerts themselves:
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Why I Bet Against SkyTerra Communications, Inc. (SKYT), Lost & I’d Do It All Again…

Posted by Timothy Sykes on Fri 6th of Feb, 2009 08:20:43 AM

The following post was sent to TIMalert subscribers mid-day the other day:
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How I Played Horizon Lines, Inc. (HRZ)

Posted by Timothy Sykes on Wed 4th of Feb, 2009 03:25:11 PM

This was the email I sent to TIMalert subscribers the other day:

Bought 4000 HRZ at $4, Earnings Turnaround…this shipper reported a surprise profit, is cutting costs, doing everything right, just as the Reuters article that will be read/promoted all weekend says…2 million shares short, trading ridiculously cheap valuation, lots of bottom pickers gonna think this is the bottom, careful it’s already up 35%+ today, resistance at $4.23, my entry isn’t event hat good, but with this one, i don’t think i have to be perfect, wouldn’t be surprised if it wavers in the $3.80-$3.90 range rest of the day, but I think it gaps up nicely/performs well early next week…told you i buy stocks, just need the proper setup!

…gave a few hours, but it failed to break $4–after much trying–so I exited saying:

Sold 4000 HRZ at $3.85, i don’t like how it can’t break $4 added to the overall market accelerating its sell off and CNBC news that the “bad bank”plan might be dead…not worth the risk of being long over the weekend with the overall market hanging on by a thread, technically-wise…so much for my first buy, annoying $600 loss, flat on the month, not risking bigger loss with imperfect pattern…watching SKYT and PSTI for potential shorts late today or Monday

When see the full 5-day chart here:

…you understand that while I was right about their earnings being a lasting catalyst, I entered before it proved it could break the key $4 resistance.

As it surged 10%, to $4.40, inside of an hour of breaking this key resistance yesterday, enriching several TIMalert subscribers who saw my premarket post yesterday:

HRZ closed right at the key $4 resistance, making me feel better about
buying the other day…this thing is still an earnings turnaround, if it can
break $4 and take out resistance at $4.2, I still think it can really surge
to the $5s or even $6s pretty soon…be careful of fakeouts, but methinks the
chart will resemble another undervalued good company earnings breakout VPRT,
potential buy

Check out the chart of VPRT, it’s exactly how this HRZ is playing out…

You see there’s not just one entrance point on these things, just like there’s no one right entrance point ont he stocks I short, which is why PennyStocking will become a lot more popular than most people believe…the key is knowing when to get in and when to get out.

I was dead wrong on my entry so I cut my losses very quickly, as did several TIMalert subscribers below (some banked by entering perfectly or even betting the other way, which is fine, more power to you!):

and made an extra $19 shorting on the TimAlert sell. +$232 overall. -Reaper

Up $64 on 5,000 shares. -matthewcox

in and out for a 250 loss… -jkart

loss $241.00 -ghozt

lost $240 -jessed

Got in at 3.8699, got out at 3.69 for a $170ish loss on 1000 shares…boo… -JeffMoates

…while it’s not the end of the world to be dead wrong–it’s a little undisciplined, but nobody’s perfect–it is bad not to cut losses quickly when you are wrong which is why when people ask me when I cut my losses–is it 5, 6, 8%, I say no, I cut losses IMMEDIATELY when a stock doesn’t act the way I think it will…by the time I get my execution on my volatile little Penny Stocks, it’s usually a loss–or a gain in some cases–of a few percent, aka a scratch.

Look at all my trades over the past year and watch my instructional trading DVDs and you’ll see scratches aren’t the things that make or break my 200% annual returns, they’re just what prevent me from disastrous losses that hurt my chances, and yours, at achieving such mind numbing performance.

Welcome to real trading, taking small losses is something EVERY SUCCESSFUL TRADER MUST DO.

The Good & Bad News About My Latest TIMalert…

Posted by Timothy Sykes on Thu 29th of Jan, 2009 03:25:30 PM

When I shorted 3000 ARTC the other day at $6.10, aiming for an afternoon fade and morning panic–as detailed in my PennyStocking Part Deux DVD, not getting it and covering quickly the next morning at $6.56ish for a $1400 loss, it was a mixed bag:

The Good:

1. Most TIMalert subscribers couldn’t find shares to short and those who did, saw that it wasn’t fading like we wanted so they actually bought the breakout at $6.50 and profited nicely, congrats guys for learning to play these stocks better than me!

2. Some subscribers did short and lost alongside me, losing a few hundred dollars each…perfectly acceptable losses as the profit goal was higher.

3. Some refused to cut losses because they haven’t learned the lessons in my instructional trading DVDs and they got really hammered…welcome to PennyStocking bitches!

The Bad:

1. Subscribers were angry my short pick went higher…sorry guys, not gonna win every time, get used to it and learn to cut losses extra quick.

2. By trying to allow subscribers to get in at good prices, I jumped the gun, shorting a stock before it broke through support–$6–on its own…really gotta wait until the stock proves it’s a worthy short, no matter if some subscribers are unhappy they miss out…gotta remember DVD students can and do anticipate these patterns so subscribers who don’t have the DVDs are missing out and will continue missing out.

3. ARTC is surprisingly similar to CLHB, a stock I detail how I got killed on in my book An American Hedge Fund…gotta learn from past mistakes, at least I cut losses quickly and am still up in January, albeit pathetically, like $700 or so.

I’ve Been Wrong 6 Picks In A Row, What Will I Do?

Posted by Timothy Sykes on Mon 29th of Dec, 2008 05:00:04 PM

Nothing.
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I Had The Worst Dream Last Night…

Posted by Timothy Sykes on Sat 15th of Nov, 2008 09:24:26 AM

Do bear with me as it doesn’t make perfect sense, but the trading lesson remains which is why I share:
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The Latest TIMalerts 20%+ Winner: Republic Bancorp, Inc. KY (RBCAA)

Posted by Timothy Sykes on Sun 26th of Oct, 2008 11:00:22 AM

This was the weirdest TIMalert I’ve ever sent out, so try to follow the chain of events…
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That’s The Bounce?!?!?! aka Die All You F%^&en Longs, Die!

Posted by Timothy Sykes on Thu 16th of Oct, 2008 07:04:28 AM

In response to my post about the lack of capitulation in the markets and after not trading into the bounce the other day, some people were saying stuff “You just talked your people out of the greatest rally in 20 years”
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My Trades On Morgan Stanley (MS), Valence Technology, Inc. (VLNC) & Mechanical Technology Inc. (MKTY)

Posted by Timothy Sykes on Mon 22nd of Sep, 2008 06:39:02 PM

Now obviously my trade on MS wasn’t an example of PennyStocking, but when you have a Japanese camera crew from their major network–6 million viewers–filming you, you wanna do a trade. See some pics HERE. Since I literally only have one account–my little TIM portfolio–it wasn’t a tough choice for me to buy 400 shares last Thursday when it broke the day high in the $21.60 area…
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In My House Where My Wife Sleeps And Where My Children Come To Play With Their Toys!

Posted by Timothy Sykes on Sat 20th of Sep, 2008 02:52:28 PM

That’s how I felt when I read THIS post from my web designer Pallian.

(you guys better know where this quote is from or else….)

The schmuck has been working with me on this website/projects and new ones for nearly seven months and after I finally get him to open a trading account with Thinkorswim so he can profit alongside TIMalert subscribers, he goes and wastes his first trade, while I’m away in Japan, buying a stock I’ve shorted several times and would never ever recommend buying.

His reasons for buying:

About a week ago, I bought a certain Uranium stock called URRE. I bought it because 1) there was talk of a takeover by a bigger firm, 2) the stock was still reasonably priced for a company that had over $7 billion worth of the radioactive mineral and 3) I wanted to gamble.

All reasons go against my teachings–as I preach again and again in my PennyStocking DVD–which he readily admits:
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The Latest Successful TIMalert: Converted Organics Inc. (COIN) For A Not-So-Easy 15% Gain

Posted by Timothy Sykes on Mon 8th of Sep, 2008 01:38:07 PM

Waaaay behind on putting all the new sites/educational posts up for next week…oh yeah new chatroom for TIMalerts subscribers-only website TIMalerts.com website too (not the cool web app me and Pallian are working on, that takes time, this is just gonna be a basic chatroom where I can chat with my TIMalert peeps in real-time throughout the trading day…yeahhh now you gotta join, suck it up you already cheap Jews!) so here’s the basic summary for a ton of COIN alerts from last week:
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How My Latest TIMalert On 4imprint Group plc (FOUR) Was Just Wrong

Posted by timothysykes on Tue 19th of Aug, 2008 12:06:50 PM

It always hurts when you’re wrong, but in trading, even in PennyStocking, you gotta come to grips with it. If you don’t, you’re not gonna succeed. Trust me, I know. I’ve had too many streaks of perfection and over time they start to screw you up in the head.

Like my latest streak where I was basically 21 for 21 on my TIMAlerts.

And even though the probable fraud FOUR jumped 10% over my entry price/TIMalert at $2.80ish, I was pretty much dead wrong when I sent out this alert explaining why I bought this stock (yes, I have and will continue buying probable frauds…when I think there’s upside…frauds can run up faster than real companies…just gotta be more careful in these situations):
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Why You Should Never Take Advice From Anyone aka Learn The Game Yourselves You Fat Lazy American Slobs!

Posted by Timothy Sykes on Fri 8th of Aug, 2008 05:15:24 PM

Got this emailed to me:

Over the last week I learned a few valuble leassons, and came to the conclusion that CNBC is full of S@#*%!! I have 8,000 in my account and trade pennystocks, i swear by Tims dvd and broke a few rules… I bought a real company and held for a week. Im scared to hold for an hour but yet I went along and held a stock for a week. Fast money was pumping it and I thought it was a good play. Turns out EMC is a piece of crap and so is the Fast Money crew.. I bought EMC at $15.54 on a Thursday DURING AFTER HOURS!!! I thought with all the news and the pumping it would hit $18 a share. I went to bed praying it would hit $18. The next day I was down a small $300 and thought I would let it run.. I let it run alright I held over the weekend and watch this crappy thing drop and then rebound.. for some reason I was stubborn, I was reassuring myself with the message boards people saying it would hit $18.

On 8/5 EMC was having confrence about some new software and I thought onj Tuesday it would sky rocket.. well I was wrong!!! It just dropped!! WTF this turd of a company cant even break $15 and I think it will hit $18. Turns out Tim was right don’t play real companies, and stay disciplined… I brok all of the rules and relized Tim knows what hes talking about. Turns out CNBC i s full of liers, and pumpers.. Cramer pumps stocks, Fast Money are just full of S#$*, and real companies SUCK!!! So taking a $1000 loss isn’t the end of the world but knowing you could of controlled the oss SUCKS! SO now I need to go rewatch Tims DVD, reread his book, and really need to concentrate on pennystocks. I sold EMC at $14.58 and is now rebounding as I write this but what the hell… All I can say is STICK TO PENNYSTOCKS, and CNBC IS FULL OF S&*^!! THANKS TIM!!

Unfortunately, this is
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July Review: Up 16% For The Month, Now 89% Since TIM Inception 9 Months Ago

Posted by Timothy Sykes on Mon 4th of Aug, 2008 04:05:54 PM

July was a damn good month in which I finished up 15.9%, or just under $3,500, to $23,485, just a bit under the critical $25,000 asset barrier. What’s more, website traffic (especially thanks to the new subscribers-only TIMalerts.com website), PennyStocking DVD sales, testimonials and most importantly, reader learning and earning all surged waaaay more than my pesky little 16%.

Comparisons to the major indexes–why bother? You all know these major indexes are getting crushed, that PennyStocking, even with my flawed timing, is crushing every single index/strategy known to man (seriously it’s fair to call this industry pathetic if I’m really gonna stay #1 on Covestor)(see rankings HERE) and that my already-healthy ego is larger for it. No point in detailing all that…at least not without devoting an entire post later this week!

See a table of my July trades, chart of website traffic and all my favorite posts from the month that was:
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“You Blew It Up! Damn You! Damn You All To Hell!” The Penny Stock Version

Posted by timothysykes on Sun 20th of Jul, 2008 11:13:19 AM

For all of you who haven’t read my book An American Hedge Fund or watched my PennyStocking instructional DVD Package, back in March, I wrote about CYGT being the stock, the sole reason, as to why my hedge fund lost 35ish% over 2 years in 2006 and 2007 (see blog post HERE).

Tough, tough, tough, tough, tough lesson, but it made me more cynical, conservative, an infinitely better teacher and even more determined to stick to my core trading strategy, a strategy that has yet to produce a huge loss, especially when I stay true to its quick loss cutting principles.

Anyway, that bankruptcy filing was pretty much the end of the story for me and the 1 million+ shares of CYGT I’ve still got–maybe I’ll frame the stock certificates as a reminder of how corrupt/bad/lying/failing (not personal just business) ALL these tiny companies are–but the other day came the nail in the coffin as the company
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Two TIMalerts: Why I Bought Energy Recovery, Inc. (ERII) & Tried Shorting New Century Energy Corp. (NCEY)

Posted by timothysykes on Tue 8th of Jul, 2008 05:28:19 PM

Here are today’s trades, and almost trades, told below by the unedited emails that went out to TIMalert subscribers today (and subscriber’ registrations will be activated tonight for the TIMalert subscribers only members website (TimAlerts.com) that will/should be fully functional tomorrow with the near real-time posting of any emailed alerts and commenting capabilities)

(every one else, don’t worry, TimothySykes.com will always remain free and open, think TheStreet.com & RealMoney.com-type model)

Today, basically NCEY was unborrowable to short (did anybody get in on that?) and ERII broke out as I was wanted/expected, up $2 or 20% from my alert, but it dipped a bit first and since I suck at/have no confidence buying stocks, I took a quick $150 loss…I’d do it again cuz you gotta remember with my account this small, I’m all about safety first…of course if the Pattern Day Trading Rule wasn’t in effect, I could easily have gotten in again when it broke the $11.30-$11.40 area…but no whining because look at these subscribers testimonials (you guys matter infinitely more than my own little account)!!

“I’m up 1200 so far on ERII. Great pick!” –bestdeception

“made 200 dollar on ERII :)” –marketgirl

“$500 profit on erii…tim alert. i’m up $1400 in my first 2 days of tim alerts” –Jonescade

“Tim, thanks for the ERII….made about $800, easily could have been $1200″ –Aaron

“Hurrrrraaayyyyy, I bought TIMalerts yesterday for $29.95. I made $326 this morning on ERII” –Ron

“Made 250$ on ERII. Thanks to TIMalerts..Was tentative and opened 200 shares..still it worked!” –Seattle Guy

“I had only 500 shares, banked total $1035 from ERII (after comm. & fees).” –Ryan

10:15am:

i just bought 500 shares of cool water energy recent IPO ERII on the breakout at 11.29 (poor execution)…11 was previous high, 10ish was the low and its only been on the market for 3 days…over
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TIM 2nd Quarter Review: I Suck But Most Everyone Else In This Joke Of An Industry Sucks Worse

Posted by timothysykes on Tue 8th of Jul, 2008 02:16:52 PM

After only a decent April (see monthly review HERE) and a heartbreaking (wasted opportunities galore) May (see monthly review HERE), my 14% June return (see monthly overview HERE) basically made my 16.6% quarter, my trading account surging from just over $17k to just over $20k, allowing me to continue to rip on this joke of an industry since even with all my mistakes I’m still doing better than 99% of the people out there, most of whom perform slightly worse than the major indexes (90% of traders lose $, 70% of fund managers fail to beat the S&P 500 cuz they’re schmucks!):

Below are all my trades and best/most important posts from the quarter that was:
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TIM June Monthly Review: It’s Satisfying To Earn 14% When Most Others Lose

Posted by Pallian (Moderator) on Mon 7th of Jul, 2008 11:42:33 AM

June was a tremendous month for me, my site and my strategy all took off just as others collapsed. Of course, just as all the longs look like geniuses in bull markets so do short sellers in bear markets and my trading/teaching was far from perfect, but the key is we’re all earning and learning…

To the numbers…

My Thinkorswim account increased from $17,807 to $20,272, a gain of $2,465, or 13.84%. Plenty of mistakes (click blog posts on the table below to see), but nice domination of Covestor (see rankings HERE) and the major indexes:

Site traffic continued its strong growth, especially monthly visitors which increased from May’s 104,000 to 150,000!

And get excited cuz now I’ve figured out a way to
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Three Small Profitable Trades For TIM; Three Giant Gains For TIMalert-kind

Posted by timothysykes on Thu 3rd of Jul, 2008 02:50:51 PM

Yup, posted about another couple of trades rather perfectly, even while I personally screwed them up a bit…this has gotta be some kind of record, what is it 10 years of this crap now? Welcome to my life brothas!

Wednesday: After a morning runup, I saw HYGS fading a bit—price and volume-wise, so I pulled up my Thinkorswim live chat to enter in my order (reserved shares in the morning, but just put a note on my account) and guess what I saw, I had shorted 2,000 TGC at $3.49 (thinking it’d never get up that high, I was too lazy to put a note on my account/have to get the chat window open again, the sequel to my original VRML mistake) and now that stock was at $3.75….friggin moron!?!?!?! Wasn’t a bad short in the overall scheme of its chart so I told TIMalert subscribers I’d hold onto it and see how it’d perform, even if it was an accidental trade. Also told em, I was watching HYGS for a possible fade since at $2.30ish, it was only up 5 cents on the day and sellers were looking more determined (forming a wall of sellers with fading buy volume)…

A few seconds later and HYGS has broken $2.30 so I put in the order to short 2,000 with a limit of $2.27…got $2.29, whewww….emailed TIMalert peeps (members-only website coming next week so you never miss anything) by saying “i think if it takes out 2.28-2.25ish, it can go under $2”…just as that was breaking down a bit, TGC pulled back too so I decided to play it safe, covering at $3.44, a 5 cent/share gain, but basically getting me out of a trade I never meant to be in.

A few minutes later, HYGS had indeed gone
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