Thursday Alerts

Reversal alerts: GRNB, ARNA (tanked - was $8, now $1.56), BIIB (my pick) and GILT.

Casting the Net

far and wide and gonna let the trailing stop loss orders do the work. Tired of creating test portfolios that just go up. Time for a real one using the same criteria.

Trades posted below.

Value-sales port: 10 of 18 were gainers, port up +12.9%.

Reversal alerts: DRC (t2) then CBD DTE NCTY & TGP filtered only on what appears to be a viable chart pattern and totally without regard for fundamentals. There, you've been warned!

Gone Shoppin'

Bought stock in AEIS ANR ASML BEXP BRKS & PWER.

Bought bull call spreads on BEXP & BRKS.

Treading Water

17 of the 18 stocks in the value-sales port were up today, putting it at a +11.9% gain, 13 winners, 5 losers.

No trades.

Reversal alerts: t2 script alerts on FIZZ and UWN, the other on BFS CVC & QGEN.

Monday Give Back

BIDU's going parabolic - at least until it comes crashing back to earth. I wish I had reliable trailing stop loss orders for options.

My October VSH calls sold today (+15%) when they nudged into profitability.

That puts me at 40% cash in my accounts. I'd buy more but so many stocks seem to be at the top of their range - not where I feel comfortable buying. Also, the sales and earnings growth is waning for a lot of the prospects I've looked at.

There were (8) reversal alerts of which only FIZZ and ATI looked interesting.

Sept Perf Chart

Link to chart...

Holy Cow

What a day. DJIA +198, Naz +54 SnP +24.

I started out ditching my Oct. puts. Bad picks I guess, they just kept nudging up. It's infinitely easier to recover from a partial loss than a total wipe-out.  It still stings but it's part of the game and I'm doing well otherwise. ALSK (-32.8%), BMRN (-48.4%). Sigh.

My nearly worthless YONG Oct 7.50 call revived enough to trigger my limit sell order, -88.6% there.

Okay, I sold the puts because the market was going up, right? But then I sold my Oct. BIDU (+71.2%) and CSCO (+54%) calls too. Because the market is going down? Dunno. I think I just like shifting money from overbought to oversold stocks rather than letting my winners run.

I bought LCOM again, and MSPD from one of my test porfolios - the one that hasn't gone parabolic yet.

Reversal alerts: t2 script ARCC, and for the other script, ALJ ARCC (again) ATLS ESGR FSS & RKT.

And now the value-sales port, up +11%:

+YGE -VSEA

Thursday's activity ...

Bought YGE shares.

Sold VSEA ($27.35) Nov 30/35 out of the money bull call spreads (-60.5%) to capture the remaining time value and hopefully redeploy the capital with better prospects. (I'm still long w/ VSEA shares though down -3.5%.) Of course it's looking to gap up this morning.

LGL dropped after announcing secondary offering following a nice run-up with substantially higher volume. There is no insider trading. Right.

LOCM remains strong.

Reversal alerts: Pharmas ARNA & ICLR plus AIRM.

Two Steps Forward

then the inevitable one, two, or three steps back.

LOCM sold today (+12.5%). I had a 10% trailing stop loss order under it and yesterday's spike pushed the trigger price up. I probably would have reset it if I'd noticed it, but banking a nice 2-day profit is not the worst thing either.

I bought WATG calls yesterday.

Reversal alerts: Two alerts, but only YGE (c) is interesting here. Triple digit earnings growth, 80% revenue growth (MRQ), and rising earnings estimates and a P/E falling from 28 to 12. Previous trades were mixed with the profitable trades netting over 20% each and the losing trades were negligible until I went to the well one too many times with a big position that took a big hit and put me in the red with YGE. It's not my best prospect ... or the worst.

Timing is Everything

I liked where I thought LOCM was headed once it came off of the bottom so I bid on a tracking position (60% normal size) on LOCM this morning. I put in a limit order at $3.52, above the previous closing price of $3.48. It filled at the open for $3.46 (the low of the day) before gaining 18%. Woohoo!

The flip side is my TNP call which expired worthless (-100%) Friday. [Boohoo]

The value-sales port is now up 8.4%.

The unfiltered reversal alerts are ASIA AWI BECN CWCO INET INT and CWCO HIBB KWK UNS WPO.

Third "Up" Week

It's hard to ignore the trend. But ignoring all of the negative commentary seems to be a good strategy.

No reversal alerts for Friday. This week's snapshot of the value-sales port ...

LOCM - Watchlist it.

The chart scans yielded only two reversal alerts, one of which is LOCM (local.com). Its skimming along the bottom of its chart at $3.56 but earnings growth is strong, its YoY revenue growth has been around 70% for the last three quarters, and has a forward P/E of 7.2. Earnings estimates have been rising and it has a recent analyst upgrade from neutral to buy. No options.

New Positions

+CSTR OMG & WLL (stock), plus bull call spreads on the first two.

A Good Day is ...

when most of the longs go up and most of the shorts go down. Nice to see the portfolio moving in the right direction.

VSEA was initiated with a overweight rating from JPMorgan. The nerve of UBS downgrading it from a buy to neutral. (I hope JPM is right!)

WATG spiked up the first thing this morning and trailed down the rest of the day. Keep an eye on it.

LGL continues to set the woods on fire. Me so sad.

No reversal alerts.

What Makes a Strong Stock

Here's are histograms for each of my exported metrics for the top performing 100 stocks over the last 4 weeks.

Choppy Ride for a "Good" Week

VectorVest is advising caution because while their index was up, the improvement was very meager and volatile.

I spent the week trying to set up good long positions in BIDU, CSCO, VECO, and ANR. When BIDU dropped, I was at one point able to sell my losing position at cost (intrinsic value was half my cost) and buy a lower spread with better pricing and potential. I also tried to get into LGL but that one got away.

Reversal alerts for the week were sparse - only 7 for the whole week for 2 chart scanners. Of those, only LGL and ISTA were of interest.


Finally, the value-sales port.

Mixed Bag

Yesterday CIB hit its 4% trailing stop loss trigger for a +8.2% gain. Bought CSCO calls and a BIDU bull call spread.

VSEA has been downgraded and is down a few percent today. Let's see, triple digit sales and earning growth, increasing earnings estimates (yf), and a forward P/E of 10. I think I'll stay long.

VECO is on sale today too. -4%.

I'm trying to go long on LGL but it keeps moving ahead of my limit order.

New Screens

Here are screens from the stock universe and last week's reversal alerts.

General Screen

Alerts Screen

One Good Week

I spent the week shifting from bearish to cautiously bullish - selling most of my puts and buying calls and call spreads. The value-sales protfolio improved as did most of the perf chart.

I'll try to post some screens tomorrow.

Riding the Roller Coaster (Market)

Sold LEAP (+14.75%) puts on the strong market open, bought BIDU calls and a Jan VECO 33/36 bull call spread for $1.51.

Sniping Away

I was a little disappointed with AAPL's "bounce" yesterday. I had a profit but not enough margin to warrant hanging on and hoping for the best with a much larger than normal position ... so I sold the calls (+7.43%). Likewise, I didn't see much more downside for STX so I opted to sell the time value I had left in the Sept. puts (+7.63%). Admittedly, these are small gains for options trades, but given the market I'm happy with 'em. Besides this blog's not titled "Outta da Park Stocks!".

Call for Put

Based on the futures I sold the EBAY (-9.17%) puts at the open and bought AAPL calls. So far so good ... fingers crossed.