Posts Tagged ‘Bad Trades’
TIM 6 Month Review: Earn 47% While The Markets Drop 10%
Yup, that’s right, tiny, loud mouthed, mistake-celebrating TIM just busted a cap in the ass of the joke that is the financial industry by implementing my own brand of PennyStocking, or short selling
penny stocks, a niche that’s supposedly random/akin to gambling and according to Forbes’ oh so popular Investopedia, in their definition of short selling, impossible to short sell! Screw them, the graph below says it all:

Maybe in the future more attention will be paid to this accurate definition of short selling
—written by somebody who’s made millions from this strategy instead of some wannabe who’s just the latest journalist joker…you guys remember Sri, the theater major over at CNBC (fired yet?) and TheStreet.com guy who wrote about a product the company had already sold (fired yet?)! How could we forget—after all, their jokes have been very profitable for me and my readers.
Sorry, I digress—my blood is boiling from the amount of misinformation out there—this is a time for celebration and review. After all, while I made plenty of mistakes, a 47% return in 6 months is something to be proud of. So, take a look at all the most important posts during this journey, I promise, no matter what Investopedia says, this strategy is alive and well, legal and learnable (and to you haters, just wait until you see what I can do when I no longer have to deal with the pattern day trader rules, I plan my speaking schedule better and I’m not building a revolutionary new website…when TIM reaches $100k, it’s gonna be damn fun shutting you up as I make $50k+ in 6 months):
Successes:
Shorting Into A Factually Inaccurate Article
How I Made An 8% Return Before Lunch
How I Made 25% Just By Holding A Distinct Pattern Overnight
Why My Strategy Works Even For Stupid People
God, I Love Short Selling Penny Stocks!
Failures:
Stop Shorting Penny Stocks Randomly, This Isn’t CNBC, I Want You To Profit!
I’m seeing a lot of comments/emails from people re-shorting these pump and dumps waaaay late in the game, just because they missed profiting from the initial dump. Here’s a tip—STOP!

Yes, these companies are all crap (okay, okay 99.9%, but this is the last time I’ll ever qualify that), but you gotta understand crap companies can and do rise faster than quality companies for several reasons:
a.) there’s no pesky actual businesses to get in the way of hyping / putting out fraudulent / exaggerated press releases so investors must only be convinced of the dream, not the execution of the dream, which is helpful considering the harsh reality / inevitable failure of these companies
b.) no pesky morals or ethics instilled in those who manage such companies / promote such stocks
First Quarter 2008 Review: Earn 21% Every 3 Months And You’ll Live A Happy Life
Coming off my best week since I started TIM 5+ months ago ($900-ish profits), it’s good to review past successes and mistakes. Without further ado, I give you the first quarter of 2008 in a nutshell, where TIM used small account size–finishing at $17,388–combined with PennyStocking to thoroughly dominate the performance of ALL major indexes, even while making tons of mistakes. Follow along and learn to do the same…already 5% higher in April and I’m just getting warmed up…
Successes:
How I Made An 8% Return Before Lunch
How I Made 25% Just By Holding A Distinct Pattern Overnight
How I Made 8% In One Morning, Leaving 40%+ On The Table One Day Later
I Had A Rough Day aka No Playboy Centerfolds For Me :(
COIN’s $1 spike at the open makes me feel better about covering too early last week, gotta be careful with momo plays in this sneakily-emerging bull market. MALL and VVTV displayed the exact same kind of forced buying Thursday into the close, same dip afterhours, so I awoke early to reserve shares of each, fully expecting big drops growing bigger throughout the day (return to normalcy). No MALL available so my focus was on VVTV. Shorted 600 shares at $5.90-ish pre-market, didn’t want to take a full position in case of morning spike…at the open there was a wall of sellers at $5.90 so I doubled up, shorting 400 shares more at $5.87…20 min in, looking good at $5.70, but instead of taking my $175-ish in profits, I got greedy, rationalizing this should retrace all the way down to $5-$5.25…mistake #1
Overall market exploded upwards, stock held that important $5.70 level (mini-support from Thursday), broke through the wall at $5.90 (bad for shorts like me!), spiked to $6…I still held, thinking it was a multi-day holder—especially with earnings coming up and their tendency to screw up…back down to $5.90, but held…gotta cover when former resistance becomes support…I didn’t…mistake #2
Yup, Even A $12 Loss Offers Important Trading Lessons
Why bother detailing a $12 loss? Because every trade matters, the good, the bad and the scratches. Important lessons are everywhere…

Shorting 400 COIN at $8.78 right before the market close on Wednesday turned out to be a good idea. I shorted because the stock was breaking down over multiple time frames, intraday, multi-day and multi-week, failing to hold keep support at $9 that I’d expected to put up more of a fight. And the daily wall of sellers have entered. Oh yeah and the company is a true POS—no pumpers or Garty the faux guru—can change that. Only problem was I had a Thursday morning meeting so it’d have to tank quickly or I’d have to risk it while I was away from the computer.
Since TIM is so tiny (must protect every $ to get the magical $25k SEC freedom hump), I’ve never used stop losses and COIN is known for squeezing shorts, holding was out of the question. In after-hours action Wednesday night, I tried taking a $100ish gain at $8.51, but discovered Thinkorswim closes after-hours action at 6:30pm. Wasn’t that pissed until the next day when the stock gapped higher to the low $9s.
Timothy Sykes Is Sssssssso Ssssssstupid!
TIM $15,688, Down $140, You Can Do So Much Better Than Me!
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh what a stupid, stupid, stupid loss, I feel like this guy:

The beautiful thing about PennyStocking is that you don’t have to scan through thousands of stocks every day, looking for the latest and greatest. No, it’s best to trade stocks that have been in play for the past few days so plenty of fickle day traders are involved. That way they’ll be volatile and liquid, two qualities most needed to give you the best odds of profiting 5-20% on a trade, long or short. Read some past blog posts and you can see me transitioning from one stock to another, whatever fits the patterns I’m comfortable playing.
Lack Of Patience And Discipline Causes Trading Losses
Despite me being so gung ho telling people not to short Converted Organics (COIN) all day yesterday, I saw the fluff news this morning coupled with a lack of incredible volume, so I shorted 300 shares at $13.50, thinking it didn’t have enough juice to break the key $14 price. Now this is what a trading addict does—sets rules and break them.
UPDATES
May 10, 2008Saturday linkfest, read it or weep
May 9, 2008Made a cool 20% in 2 days on VRML, just a perfectly executed trade from start to finish, nap time
May 9, 2008VRML about to crack $3.40, could take 20 minutes or so, enough time to listen to the latest TIMradio podcast with Thinkorswim founder / industry badass Tom Sosnoff!
May 9, 200810 stocks to watch today, don't worry about not finding shares to short, few are ideal anyway
















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