Easy Come, Easy Go

Today's action seemed like the exact opposite of yesterday's. DNS -207, -61, -25.

Just when you think you're out of the woods with GMCR it goes down 12.2%. Sheez.

Trades:

PTEN's move up yesterday gave me a chance to put a 6% trailing stop loss under it. It sold today, +5.1%.

HAYN hit its 8% trailing stop to close with a +3.1% gain. Any gain is better than a loss.

I went searching for stocks from the growth screen that haven't run up like crazy in the last three weeks. I found KEG, MIC, and UEPS. The limit buy orders filled for KEG and MAG. UEPS finished up 2.7% for the day.

Key Energy Services Inc. (KEG)

EPS Growth
Prev Yr	Past Yr	Growth	P/E
-0.65	-0.01	98.5%	-
-0.15	-0.08	46.7%	-
-0.08	-0.13	-62.5%	-
-0.08	0.25	412.5%	273.8
Next Two Quarters (est)
-0.01	0.31	3200.0%	31.29
-0.08	0.35	538.8%	14.02

Sales Growth
Prev Yr	Last Yr	Growth
215.3	283.7	31.8%
237.6	350.2	47.4%
252.0	391.0	55.2%
267.8	445.4	66.3%

Macquarie Infrastructure Compa (MIC)

EPS Growth
Prev Yr	Past Yr	Growth	P/E
-0.37	0.20	154.1%	-
-0.44	0.09	120.5%	-
-0.10	0.24	340.0%	-
0.01	-0.05	-600.0%	51.6
Next Two Quarters (est)
0.20	0.72	257.5%	24.87
0.09	0.77	750.0%	14.82

Sales Growth
Prev Yr	Last Yr	Growth
185.6	213.3	14.9%
193.6	221.5	14.4%
201.3	239.9	19.2%
204.7	247.2	20.8%

Net 1 UEPS Technologies Inc. (UEPS)

EPS Growth
Prev Yr	Past Yr	Growth	P/E
0.37	0.16	-56.8%	-
0.42	0.22	-47.6%	-
0.41	-0.47	-214.6%	-
-0.37	0.15	140.5%	116.7
Next Two Quarters (est)
0.16	0.38	137.5%	25.00
0.22	0.39	77.3%	15.56

Sales Growth
Prev Yr	Last Yr	Growth
65.5	64.3	-1.8%
73.9	89.0	20.4%
72.3	92.8	28.4%
68.7	97.4	41.8%

Reversal alerts: (2).

ACTG has erratic sales and earnings, but the P/E is expected to fall from 73 to 28 in the next two quarters.

What a Day!

DNS + 105, +62, +16.

I looked at selling GMCR covered calls this morning but decided I didn't want to find my shares sold low in a short squeeze. The frequently overlooked "Do Nothing" option pays off again. GMCR and FMCN were up 8.7% and 8.6% respectively.

Trades:

PVH's second gap up scared me. While that's what we want as investors, I didn't want to be wishing I had sold the December call options when the price falls to fill the gap, so I sold 'em. +28.3% for my account and +129.6% for an untracked account, both less commissions. The call in my account was down 37% at one point, so a +28% return is a nice rebound ... plus the call was purchased so deep in the money it would take a lot to move the return up significantly.

Portfolios:

I usually only report portfolio performance on Friday, but after a move like today's ... ESG is at -15.8%, value-sales is at +7.35%.

Reversal alerts: (1), junk.

A Decent Week

A second up day got the indexes back to around even for the week. DNS +267, +39, +23.

HAYN and GTLS had a good day with 7.4% and 6.4% gains. From the watchlist, SYNA and ALTR were up 19.1% and 12.2% respectively.

Trades:

I had a $4.99 limit sell order on my $5 GMCR call spread just in case the pricing could take me out early and not be at risk of GMCR's (and the market's) volatility. The well ITM spread got swept just before the close costing me a penny per share plus commissions. Oh well, +48.4% for a one day investment will have to do.

Portfolios:

I think the ports lost some ground this week. The ESG port is at -18.5%, the value-sales port is at +2.86%.

Reversal alerts: (1), junk.

Up Down Up

What a ride. DNS +37, -5, +6.

JASO had a nice 24% day on heavy volume. EXM was up 14.3%.

Trades:

OAS hit the trailing stop, +26.0%. ROSE hit its trailing stop, +6.0%.

 GMCR started off the day by dropping 9%. I guessed that the second bottom was the low for the day. Again, this was another stock with a high time premium, so I bought a $60/$65 bull call spread that expires tomorrow. That will be good for 50% profit if it can close above $65 tomorrow (now at $68.09).

Limit buy orders filled for WPRT and GTLS shares, both part of a natural gas for trucking play.

Reversal alerts: (1), junk.

Afternoon Blues

The market was okay for half the day. DNS -72, -53, -16.

Trades:

Yesterday I was looking to buy calls on FMCN when it spiked down but the time values were excessive. So I decided to sell it and found a December $20/$22.50 bull call spread trading for less than intrinsic value. By the end of the day the bull call spread was well in the money (a 78% return) ... and still is after today's sell-off.

Today my limit buy order for RES shares filled.

I have 8% trailing stop loss orders on everything that was up 10% or more (including CF, ROSE, & WLL), except OAS which has a 6% TSL since it was up 28% for me. CVI triggered its TSL and sold, +5.6%.

GMCR is stinking up the joint. I wish I had put a stop loss order in before it dropped 26%. Now I'm using my least favorite investing strategy ... "Hoping and Praying".

Reversal alerts: (2).

RLRN and IDCC. Neither is very compelling.

2 Steps Back

Mondays aren't very kind lately. DNS -247, -53, -24.

BEXP and OAS held their pre-market gains, SNDA was up 14.5%.

GMCR gave up over 10% as did ENER, EXM, VECO, RBCN, and UTSI.

I wanted back into WPRT but it was up too much when I had the chance. It closed down. Maybe tomorrow.

Trades:

My covered calls for GMCR expired worthless last Friday, so that sale reduced my cost basis by 1%. Only 7.4% more to go to break even after today's flogging. I tried to sell covered calls for this week's expiration but I used a limit order. I should have sold at the bid, hindsight being 20/20 and all.

I sold my fist two ARR positions, -13.1% and -9.9% (not counting the dividends). The first one was bought just before the big secondary and never went positive. The second was good for a while. I figured that if the market continues to rebound, money's going to flow out of ARR's stock so I opted to downsize my position.

I bought shares in WLL.

Feeling I was getting over-weighted in oil drillers, I went for a little more tech and bought shares and calls in MSCC (should have set that limit lower!).

Reversal alerts: (1), junk.

BEXP & OAS

Brigham Exploration (BEXP) is being purchased by Statoil ASA (STO) and is up about 20% pre-market.

There's some interest in OAS as well with strong pre-market volume and bid up around 7%.

Complete Production Services (CPX) announced its purchase by Superior Energy Services (SPN) last week.