Adding BIDU, HAL and SMTC

Trades: I bought March & April calls for all three of the above, and shares of SMTC. These from my latest value/growth screen.

Reversal alerts: (13) filtered down to LAYN BRKR PAY & RBN.

Who's on First

I've been trading rather actively so it's about time to summarize my holdings. Here goes ...

Stocks: ANR CF MCHP SMS SSW VALE VECO* VSEA WFR WLL & XLE. (all long)

Covered Calls (sold): (Apr) VECO*

Calls: (Jan) SKX VECO, (Feb) AEIS AMAT NEWP SCHN XLE, (Mar) SCCO, (Apr) WFR.

Puts: None.

Bull Call Spreads: (Jan) ANR CF CSTR FMCN RES RES, (Feb) CF.

Performance-wise, only the SKX call and FMCN spread are stinking up the joint. RES and VECO are a little underwater so they'll get back on track soon I hope.

I plan to sell higher calls to convert the most of the calls into bull call spreads, depending on the movement of individual stocks and the general market of course.

Good 'til the Last Drop

Trades: EGHT had plenty of time to launch but started going in the wrong direction. Gone. -6.1%.

Reversal alerts: (15) filtered down to ATV ANAD CMC TTES & NTE.

Treading Water

Trades:

ERES was getting a little "toppy" so I took that money off the table (+25.9%). Not bad for a play where I was looking to perhaps grab 7%.

RES hit the trailing stops in two accounts today (-16.5% for the small holding, -5.3% for the big one). Every time I reviewed it I said this is not a sell. I lost the argument with the trailing stop. I still have two Jan. RES spreads (mixed).

Reversal alerts: (14) filtered down to SMTC WIRE MSCC & ININ.

Post-Holiday Something

I'm not sure what today's market action meant - a poor opening followed by a strong rebound. The markets continued to slowly gain ground, finishing just above or below the even mark.

Trades: The early drop at the open filled limit orders for calls in NEWP and XLE.

NEWP has double-digit sales growth and triple-digit earnings growth with its P/E falling from 25 to 14.4. It has strong analyst opinions and estimates are being revised upward.

XLE is sporting double-digit sales growth and triple-digit earnings growth with a P/E falling to 3.7. No analyst data on Yahoo.

Reversal alerts: t2: CVLT DORM HAIN MASI & SCBT. hlr: ATV.

'Twas the Night Before the Night Before

Trades: I bought WFR shares and AMAT calls.

Reversal alerts: IOC, DORM and IDTI. IDTI is the winner here with better sales and earnings growth, dropping the P/E from 45 to 15.

Value-sales port, +38.0%

I'm 18 for 18 on the value-sales portfolio started 7/30/10. I think I'll take the next two days off.

New Old Money

Up again today. I'll speculate the some positions were sold earlier for tax reasons and now that money's coming back into the market.

Trades:

My $7.40 limit sell order for my Jan $7.50 BEXP spread fired off today. +100.2%.

I grabbed my last stock screen and went shopping. I bought calls on AEIS and WFR. I bought shares of MCHP, and SSW for a small account where CBAI was held 'til yesterday.

Reversal alerts: (13) of which only MCHP and NBR are interesting. MCHP has been sporting double digit (60%+) sales growth and triple digit earnings growth and a P/E projected to fall from 20.5 to 15.7. That growth is expected to level off next year. NBR has not been nearly as consistent, but has good earnings estimates and sales growth projected that will drop its P/E from 728 to 28.

Wealth-Lab $imulation

I just ran a Wealth-Lab $imulation with the t2 script for the last 120 trading days. Most weeks have been profitable. 

Over that time there were 30 trades, 22 of which were profitable an average of 17.81%. There were 8 losing trades averaging -9.55%. The net profit was 20.4%. Buy and Hold yielded just +3.5%.

Jump and Run

The market popped at the open and kept climbing. DJIA +55, Naz +18, SnP +7.5.

Trades: I bought CF shares and sold VECO covered calls.

CBAI finally hit the limit order again and closed out the poistion. That was a tough way to make a little profit.

RES has a pulse again, +7.1%. ERES is up again.

The value-sales portfolio is up +38.7%.

I did another sales/growth/value screen last night - got 72 results. As I went through the charts, probably 80% were hitting new highs. Basically, in this market you could buy half of them blind. Put in stop loss orders and replace the few that sell. At the end you'd have a monster portfolio.

Reversal alerts: (26) filtered down to SMTC ICUI ARW SOHU UNP & BBD. SMTC, ARW, and SOHU have the edge here.

Roller Coaster Monday

Trades:
My BEXP shares from my spread expiration (in the money, but shy of the short call) were up and started trailing down so I sold to add another 3.1% to the trade. Again, should have waited as BEXP rallied later in the day.

I sold CF Jan and Feb $125 calls for a pretty good price to convert calls to bull call spreads. I'm really starting to believe that post-expiration-Monday morning is the best time to sell calls.

Reversal alerts: (8). Nothing for me here but here they are: t2: CRI & SWHC. hlr: BVN CSR DVA HNR MRTN & RMBS.

ERES has been on a tear. Thirteen straight days of higher highs and higher lows. That's very rare. Not that I'm complaining about an 18.8% gain on something where I was hoping to snipe 7%, but caution becomes a bigger part of the equation after a while. I tightened up the stops last week.

Backwards Man

There are times when you just go about everything backwards. That was me today and yesterday.

Yesterday I sold WLL and VSEA spreads early, and below where they closed. Today they're up again, VSEA a whopping 4.7%. The other call spreads that closed today went down, BEXP -2.9%.  Sigh.  :-(

Trades: Expired call spreads: BEXP +53.0%, OMG +117.4% (both gross).

Value-sales port, +36.2%

Reversal alerts: (14) filtered down to HLF CRI RTN & EGY.

Buying RES

I'm still bullish on RES (RPC Inc.) and just picked up more shares.

RES is setting up a nice reversal pattern with good symmetry in the indicators. Analyst opinions are lukewarm, but it's P/E is falling from 36 to 17 (based on last Friday's price), and earnings estimates are holding up well. That's with triple digit sales and earnings growth.

Panic Dis Order

With the roller coaster market and options expiring tomorrow, I put in limit sell orders for VSEA and WLL as both had lost ground recently. Both orders fired off and I lost a little value (probably). +33.7% and +14.3% respectively. Considering that I'd rolled the short call up on VSEA to buy discounted intrinsic value, and doubled down on WLL with a late repeat buy, I can't complain about my yields ... too much.

That still leaves me with expiring in-the-money spreads for BEXP and OMG.

Reversal alerts: (4). Ford, SNH, and TKLC. Ford is holding a P/E between 10 and 8.

3rd Down Day

I usually like to buy after three "down" days. And here's the part where I get pessimistic and say "but not now" and watch the DJIA shoot up 200 points tomorrow.

Trades: I bought stock and calls in RES and VECO.

Reversal alerts: (4) of which only DVA is viable. 5% sales growth, flat earnings, and a P/E of 16. Meh.

The value-sales port has dropped to a +35.1% gain.

An "Up" Day. Really?

Not if you're looking at my positions and watchlist.

Trades: I bought EGHT stock, and calls for CF and SCCO. I should have waited.

VECO got a 15.6% haircut today after a downgrade by Citi to "hold".  For this year, there is another hold rating, one buy, and two overweights. Veeco's P/E is falling from 11 to 7 with recent sales growth just under 300% YoY and triple digit earnings growth. It looks like the sales and earning are going to flatten out next year, but the estimates are holding well. I'm gonna pick up some of that.

Reversal alerts: (2), BBW & PTC. PTC might be okay but seems fully valued.

Took a Spill

The market lost its footing late in the day. It's never easy ... at least recent buys ERES, VALE, and SMS are moving up.

Trades: I bought SCHN calls. SCCO got away.

Reversal alerts: (4).

The T2 script issued an alert on TTM - the HLR script alerted on it last week. It's P/E is 17.9 and that's all we know.

EGHT has very modest growth and a P/E falling to 18.6, but it could be setting up for another run.

I'm always ready to snipe a few percent on a reversal play if the fundamentals are okay. It helps a lot if the market is moving with you. But that's frequently not the case on any given day lately.

Another Up Week

Despite all the thrashing about, we're still moving up. DJIA +40, Naz +21, SnP +7.

Trades:

VSH has been drifting about and seemed headed for the trailing stop so I intervened and cut it loose in anticipation of a consolidation phase. +79.4%

CRZO announced a secondary offering after yesterday's close which explains the big drop three days ago. [Remember, there is no insider trading.] I didn't like the sound of that so I sold while I could still close out my spread in the green. +0.77%

Value-sales portfolio up +37.7%

Reversal alerts: (10).
WTR is so-so fundamentally and has moved up well (ptp).

TTM has a P/E of 20, and that's about all that is published.

I like where shipper SSW is going. Sales growth is accelerating. Now at 50% YoY sales growth (mrq). Let it shed some losses and it's headed for a P/E of 10. It's going into my watch list with the other shippers.

CIEN LULU SWS SIMG

were the big movers on my watchlist today.

I was hoping yesterday's volatility and lower prices would yield some good deals on call spreads this morning. My orders for AMP and CRZO were quickly outbid.

Trades: I bought some more WLL spreads since it was down. Could have paid less.

Reversal alerts: EGHT EPD LNCE LUV & SWS. I'll pass.

Weird Wednesday

The market indexes closed up, but all of my holdings were down except VSH, ERES and CBAI. My oil stocks were hit hard even though oil went up throughout the day.

Trades: The 6% trailing stops kicked in for VECO (+5.6%) and CF (-1.8%). CBAI touched my limit order and sold a few shares ... so few that I didn't even turn a profit after paying the sales commission. Booo.

My CRZO limit order for a call spread finished filling.

Reversal alerts: (3), all junk.

Tax Relief?

The market opened strong on the hope that tax cuts would be preserved ... then fizzled late in the day. Why do they call them tax cuts when we're overtaxed to begin with?

Trades: I bought some ERES shares.

Reversal alerts: (7) of which TSRA is of interest.

Other stuff: I'm looking again at watchlist stocks AMAT AMP APH & SCHN.

The value-sales portfolio is at +35.6%.

Flipping the Intrinsic

Today I went shopping for some option value and picked up some more energy and raw material stocks.

Trades:

I rolled my VSEA short call from $30 to 35, basically buying $5 of intrinsic value for $4.15 with the Dec. expiration coming in under two weeks.

I bought a Dec 105/115 WLL spread worth $8.64 for $6.65.

These short term trades should work out nice unless the market turns and stomps my head in. But I digress ...

Equity-wise, I bought more RES. I also moved into VALE and SMS. VALE's P/E is falling from 14 to 9 with triple digit sales and earnings growth. SMS has resurfaced (was MM - Metal Management) and has been going through some acquisition process - or not, and has no meaningful analyst coverage. I can see SMS with a forward P/E of 11. Maybe. Reader beware.

Reversal alerts: (5) of which ERES and XPO are interesting. We finally got our T2 script's alert on ERES since it has held its ground since bouncing off of the bottom two days ago. XPO is holding a P/E around 12 and has strong double digit sales growth, and growing institutional ownership (86% of institutional trades were buys; institutional ownership now at 43%).

Rebound Week

Three good days put us back where we were (more or less).

Trades: I missed moving my limit order up on my BRKS spread again. A few days ago I was trying to sell it for a small profit as I was moving to cash. Today I'm miffed because I sold $3 of intrinsic value for $2.75. Oh well, +24.8% will have to do.

I bought ANR & RES stock for some IRA accounts.

Value-sales portfolio, +35.0%

Reversal alerts: (5), all bad.

The One(s) That Got Away

DJIA +107, Naz +30, SnP +15.

Here's the part where I whine about the stocks I sold too early. LOCM +27.8%, PWER +8.2%. Okay, I'm done.

ERES was up 7.3% today so I might be on to something there.

Trades: none.

Reversal Alerts: Only three: CPBK MEDW & SGMA. Too bad none of them has earnings estimates.

Didn't Expect This

DJIA +250, Naz +51, SnP +26. Now that's a nice turn-around. Hopefully tomorrow's news won't be all about collapsing economies and global conflicts.

If we really are at the early stages of an economic recovery, then I don't want to be out of the market. That's particularly true of energy, raw materials, and maybe transportation. There's no bear market in energy as BEXP, CRZO, DRQ, RES and WLL were hitting new highs again today.

Trades: I bought Jan $15 bull call spreads in ANR, CRZO, and RES. I converted my Dec VSEA calls to a bull call spread.

Reversal Alerts: 24.

ERES (c f) has been beaten up pretty badly, has weak analyst support, and it's earning estimates are mixed between being revised upward and downward. On the plus side, its P/E is falling from 33 to 20. Sales growth was accelerating ... +99% YoY mrq though it will hold steady next quarter. Earnings will nearly double in the next quarter as it's estimated to go from 6 cps (mrq) to 10 then 12 cents/share (+49% and +188% YoY). Something has positively influenced sales and earnings going forward.

However, this was an alert from the HLR script and it does not have a good record with predicting ERES moves. The T2 script shows horrible indicator symmetry as this stock has just continued to slide. There's been huge selling pressure here - maybe its warranted, or maybe there's a trade here. I'm going to watchlist it, and may try to catch a bounce. We're either ahead of the crowd here or the last to get the bad news.