2009 – Page 3 – Goode Trades

Trade recap for December 16th: Failing utterly on SNSS

I have updated my disclosures and disclaimers, which is now upgraded to a terms of use. Please read it: http://www.reapertrades.com/terms-of-use/

I suggest reading the amusing exchange between Tim Sykes and The Lionmaster about EONC today. Here are Lionmaster’s first comment and Sykes’ first reply.

+   BOT   3,000   SNSS   false   Stock   1.850   USD   DRCTEDGE   08:09:08       15.00
+   BOT   3,000   SNSS   false   Stock   1.670   USD   ARCA   09:38:29       15.00
+   SLD   10,000   EONC   false   Stock   3.179   USD   SMART   11:36:09       50.00
+   BOT   10,000   EONC   false   Stock   3.130   USD   DRCTEDGE   11:37:42       50.00

Daily profit: $22.00

Disclosure: No positions in anything mentioned in this post. This blog has a terms of use and you can find all my disclaimers there as well; my full terms of use is incorporated by reference into this post.

Watchlist for December 16th

JBII & BGEM are pumps and I would love to short, but no shares.

RXII on short watch.

A bunch of oil E&P companies have breakout charts, but largely in response to the XTO buyout by Exxon, so uninteresting and unlikely to continue.

Disclosure: No positions in anything mentioned in this post. I have a disclosure policy and you can find all my disclaimers there as well; those disclosure & disclaimers are incorporated by reference into this post.

Trade recap for December 15th

Daily profit: ($231.44)

Disclosure: Short 6000 SNSS. No positions in anything else mentioned in this post. I have a disclosure policy and you can find all my disclaimers there as well; those disclosure & disclaimers are incorporated by reference into this post.

Watchlist for December 15th

A video watchlist! The video unfortunately cuts off before I was finished. It does show many interesting stocks and gives a feel for how I scan.

Potential longs: AEN, ZSTN, TSTC, MGPI

Potential shorts: SNSS, CYCC

Disclosure: Long 300 BHWX. No positions in anything else mentioned in this post. I have a disclosure policy and you can find all my disclaimers there as well; those disclosure & disclaimers are incorporated by reference into this post.

Trade recap for December 14th

Another day where I traded a lot of SNSS.

Daily profit: $733.16

Trades at IB:

+   BOT   2,500   SNSS   false   Stock   2.220   USD   ARCA   09:31:21       12.50
SLD   2,500   JYHW   false   Stock   0.7150   USD   ARCAEDGE   09:32:22       8.94
+   SLD   2,500   SNSS   false   Stock   2.300   USD   SMART   09:32:32       12.50
+   BOT   30   BRK B   false   Stock   3,300.933   USD   NYSE   14:13:11       1.00
SLD   1   BRK A   false   Stock   99163.00   USD   NYSE   14:14:05       1.00
+   BOT   800   SNSS   false   Stock   2.110   USD   SMART   14:24:30       4.00
+   SLD   800   SNSS   false   Stock   2.120   USD   ISLAND   14:27:43       4.00
BOT   300   BHWX   false   Stock   0.9000   USD   SMART   15:59:00       1.35

Disclosure: Long 300 BHWX, short 30 BRK-B, long 1 BRK-A. No positions in anything else mentioned in this post. I have a disclosure policy and you can find all my disclaimers there as well; those disclosure & disclaimers are incorporated by reference into this post.

Watchlist for December 14th

SNSS – Top watch, heavily short-biased. Hopefully you are familiar with this stock after its crazy moves the last couple days.

NVLT – Nice breakout chart, too bad it is an OTC BB stock.

CYCC – Like a mini-SNSS, it too moved a couple days after its good drug-related news. Short on red, but not a ton of downside.

NEP – Nice breakout, decent volume, but it is an oil stock. Could still be decent on green.

EVC – Another beautiful breakout, but with plenty of longer-term resistance around $3 to $3.50.

AA – A chart similar to EVC. This of course is Alcoa, and considering it is a big, real company, I won’t be too interested in trading it.

LCC, UAUA, AMR – All these airlines spiked Friday.

Recap for Friday the 11th: Support, once broken, becomes resistance (with special guest Joe Biden)

I had plenty of trades today, all but one of them in SNSS.

Daily profit: ($479.00)

Weekly profit: $388.14

SNSS 1-day chart

SNSS 2-day chart

Trades at IB:
+   BOT   4,700   SNSS   false   Stock   1.487   USD   ARCA   09:29:48       23.50
+   SLD   4,700   SNSS   false   Stock   1.494   USD   ARCA   09:30:56       23.50
+   BOT   4,000   SNSS   false   Stock   1.550   USD   ARCA   09:32:34       20.00
+   SLD   4,000   SNSS   false   Stock   1.500   USD   SMART   09:33:22       20.00
+   BOT   4,000   SNSS   false   Stock   1.570   USD   ARCA   10:01:23       20.00
+   SLD   4,000   SNSS   false   Stock   1.611   USD   BATS   10:03:18       20.00
+   BOT   3,000   SNSS   false   Stock   2.020   USD   SMART   10:45:22       15.00
+   SLD   3,000   SNSS   false   Stock   1.957   USD   SMART   10:46:21       15.00
BOT   2,500   JYHW   false   Stock   0.6400   USD   SMART   15:48:24       8.00

Disclosure: Long 2500 shares of JYHW. No positions in anything else mentioned in this post. I have a disclosure policy and you can find all my disclaimers there as well; those disclosure & disclaimers are incorporated by reference into this post.

Watchlist for Friday the 11th

Just two stocks on watch tonight, but they are two good stocks! Heck, who needs me for these watchlists? Preston already mentioned these an hour ago!

SNSS – Okay, news was two days ago, and yet it waited until today to really run. I’m short biased, but it could have another big day. This is my top watch (and probably is for everyone else, too).

AKNS – Is news of selling their product at Lowes really worth a 50% gain? I will take my cue from the black candle and short with abandon on red! As always, I will not look to short if it gaps down.

Trade recap for December 10th: Excitement & small profits

I suggest checking out my blog post on Investools’ settlement with the SEC at my GoodeValue blog. Also, don’t miss my review of auto-trading Tim Sykes at Covestor Investment Management that I published earlier today.

Today was an exciting day, but the net result was unspectacular. That is okay … exciting can be bad, and the day certainly started off badly. I spend most of my trade recap discussing RWC.

Daily profit: $228.50

Trades at IB:
SLD   1,000   SMCE   false   Stock   1.79   USD   SMART   09:30:19       5.00
+   BOT   5,000   RWC   false   Stock   3.940   USD   SMART   09:31:43       25.00
+   SLD   2,500   RWC   false   Stock   4.090   USD   SMART   09:39:58       12.50
+   SLD   2,500   RWC   false   Stock   4.140   USD   AMEX   09:40:12       12.50
+   BOT   800   RWC   false   Stock   3.930   USD   DRCTEDGE   09:53:17       4.00
+   SLD   800   RWC   false   Stock   4.070   USD   AMEX   09:55:57       4.00
+   BOT   800   NLST   false   Stock   6.140   USD   SMART   10:00:57       4.00
SLD   800   NLST   false   Stock   6.1500   USD   SMART   10:01:52       4.00
+   BOT   500   LZB   false   Stock   10.000   USD   ISLAND   12:41:13       2.50
SLD   500   ENER   false   Stock   11.60   USD   ISLAND   12:56:16       2.50
+   BOT   500   ENER   false   Stock   11.760   USD   SMART   12:57:40       2.50
+   SLD   500   LZB   false   Stock   10.002   USD   NYSE   13:16:19       2.50

A first look at auto-trading Tim Sykes using Covestor Investment Management

About a month ago I signed up for Covestor Investment Management (CV.IM). I put $10,000 into a new account at Interactive Brokers controlled by them and then signed up for that $10,000 to be auto-traded following Timothy Sykes. I mainly did this out of curiosity to see how well the trade replication worked. Please note that only Sykes’ trades in one of his two Interactive Brokers accounts are replicated by those following his strategy on CV.IM (trades in his other IB account are replicated with the CV.IM Tim Sykes Aggressive strategy, while trades in his SogoTrade and ThinkorSwim accounts are not replicated anywhere).

My biggest problem with CV.IM is that it subdivides orders and then sends those orders at two minute intervals, guaranteeing that the last shares filled will be filled long after the first shares were filled [Edit 12/10/09 see comment #7 below for an explanation from Covestor]. While this may make sense to minimize market impact for longer-term traders, it is absurd to have an order-replication algorithm that does such a thing when trying to track a day-trader of volatile stocks. Even ignoring the problems with subdividing the orders, out of 7 total trades (three round-trips), 2 had initial fills over 15 minutes after Sykes’ order was filled (the initial short on DRAM and the buy on LZB). Because of this risk of delayed replication time I must emphatically recommend against signing up with CV.IM to follow Tim Sykes or any other short term trader.

Below are my round-trip trades so far and the comparisons to where Tim Sykes made the trade and when I received an alert from his TimAlerts trade alert service. First I compare my profit margin per trade with Sykes’ profit margins:

IMGG — Me: +14.3%
IMGG — Tim: +13.1%
Difference: +1.2% in my favor

DRAM — Me: (8.3%)
DRAM — Tim: +5.6% (approximate)
Difference: (13.9%) to my detriment

LZB — Me: (4.4%)
LZB — Tim: (2.0%) (approximate)
Difference: (2.4%) to my detriment

From these three trades I have lost a net of $30.78, including commissions and short stock borrow fees.

—

The first trade, IMGG, was replicated quickly:

My CV.IM account short sold 571 IMGG on 11/17/09 at $1.645 at 9:34:40
My CV.IM account covered 571 IMGG on 11/18/09 at $1.41 at 9:36:20

Tim Sykes short sold IMGG on 11/17/09 at $1.64 and I received the TimAlert email at 9:39
He covered IMGG on 11/18/09 at $1.425 and I received the TimAlert email at 9:38

For IMGG, everything worked well and both sides of the trade were replicated quickly and almost exactly at the same price Tim Sykes trades were at.

—

The second trade, DRAM, was not replicated quickly:

My CV.IM account short sold 131 shares of DRAM at $4.28 at 12:03:07.
My CV.IM account short sold 146 more shares of DRAM at an average price of $4.53 between 13:50:19 and 13:58:34. This was submitted as four separate orders spaced 2 minutes apart on average.
My CV.IM account covered all 277 shares of DRAM at an average price of $4.746 between 9:42:18 and 9:48:26. This was submitted as four separate orders spaced 2 minutes apart on average.

Tim Sykes short sold DRAM on 11/23/09 at $4.68 and I received the TimAlert at 11:46.
He short sold more DRAM on 11/23/09 at $4.59 and I received a TimAlert (text only) circa 14:25.
Tim covered all his shares of DRAM on 11/24/09 at $4.40ish and I received a TimAlert email at 9:47.

For DRAM, the first short trade was over 17 minutes after the TimAlert (so probably just about 20 minutes after Sykes actually made the trade). It was also at a price over 8% lower than Sykes’ trade. Because I do not have adequate records of when I received the second short alert, I cannot say how close the first trade at CV.IM was to it. However, there was still 8 minutes between first and last fill on the subdivided short orders. The cover orders began before I received the TimAlert, but the fills on the buy to cover orders were still over 7% higher than Sykes’ cover.

—

The third trade, LZB, was not replicated quickly:

My CV.IM account bought 123 shares of LZB on 12/8/09 at an average price of $10.125 between 15:24:18 and 15:40:28. This was submitted as five separate orders spaced 3 minutes apart on average.
MY CV.IM account sold those 123 shares of LZB on 12/9/09 at an average price of $9.761 between 9:52:15 and 10:00:16. This was submitted as five separate orders spaced 2 minutes apart on average.

Tim Sykes bought LZB on 12/8/09 at $10.00 and I received the TimAlert email at 15:06.
He sold LZB on 12/9/09 at $9.80ish and I received the TimAlert email at 9:55.

For LZB, even the initial buy order from CV.IM came 25 minutes after Tim Sykes bought and 18 minutes after I received the TimAlert. The fills on the sell were better, with the initial fills beating the TimAlert, but because of the spacing of the subdivided sell orders, many of the shares were not sold until after the TimAlert was received.

—

Here are the details from each of my trades copied from my Interactive Brokers activity statement:

Symbol

Date/Time

Exchange

Quantity

T. Price

C. Price

T. Amount

Comm/Tax

Basis

Realized P/L

MTM P/L

Code

Stocks

USD

DRAM

2009-11-23, 12:03:07

–

-131

4.2800

4.4800

-560.68

-1.00

-559.68

0.00

-26.20

DRAM

2009-11-23, 13:50:19

–

-57

4.5900

4.4800

-261.63

-1.00

-260.63

0.00

6.27

DRAM

2009-11-23, 13:52:35

–

-39

4.5900

4.4800

-179.01

-1.00

-178.01

0.00

4.29

DRAM

2009-11-23, 13:56:59

–

-28

4.4300

4.4800

-124.04

-1.00

-123.04

0.00

-1.40

DRAM

2009-11-23, 13:58:34

–

-22

4.4000

4.4800

-96.80

-1.00

-95.80

0.00

-1.76

DRAM

2009-11-24, 09:42:18

–

4.5750

5.3900

260.78

-1.00

243.52

-18.25

46.46

ML;C

DRAM

2009-11-24, 09:44:52

–

4.6900

5.3900

51.59

-1.00

47.00

-5.59

7.70

ML;C

DRAM

2009-11-24, 09:46:23

–

4.6400

5.3900

23.20

-1.00

21.36

-2.84

3.75

ML;C

DRAM

2009-11-24, 09:48:26

–

204

4.799608

5.3900

979.12

-1.02

905.28

-74.86

120.44

P;ML;C

Total DRAM

92.53

-9.02

0.00

-101.54

159.54

IMGG

2009-11-17, 09:34:40

–

-571

1.6450

1.4850

-939.30

-2.86

-936.44

0.00

91.36

IMGG

2009-11-18, 09:36:20

–

571

1.4100

1.2100

805.11

-2.86

936.44

128.47

-114.20

ML;C

Total IMGG

-134.18

-5.72

0.00

128.47

-22.84

LZB

2009-12-08, 15:24:18

–

10.1400

10.1100

223.08

-1.00

224.08

0.00

-0.66

LZB

2009-12-08, 15:26:17

–

10.1300

10.1100

222.86

-1.00

223.86

0.00

-0.44

LZB

2009-12-08, 15:28:14

–

10.1300

10.1100

172.21

-1.00

173.21

0.00

-0.34

LZB

2009-12-08, 15:36:14

–

10.1000

10.1100

111.10

-1.00

112.10

0.00

0.11

LZB

2009-12-08, 15:40:28

–

10.1200

10.1100

516.12

-1.00

517.12

0.00

-0.51

LZB

2009-12-09, 09:52:15

–

-5

9.8200

9.8700

-49.10

-1.00

-50.95

-2.85

-0.25

ML;C

LZB

2009-12-09, 09:54:16

–

-5

9.8200

9.8700

-49.10

-1.00

-50.95

-2.85

-0.25

ML;C

LZB

2009-12-09, 09:56:17

–

-5

9.7900

9.8700

-48.95

-1.00

-50.95

-3.00

-0.40

ML;C

LZB

2009-12-09, 09:58:19

–

-97

9.7600

9.8700

-946.72

-1.00

-985.98

-40.26

-10.67

ML;C

LZB

2009-12-09, 10:00:16

–

-11

9.7000

9.8700

-106.70

-1.00

-111.54

-5.84

-1.87

ML;C

Total LZB

44.80

-10.00

0.00

-54.80

-15.28

Total in USD

3.14

-24.74

0.00

-27.87

121.42

Disclosure: No positions in any stocks mentioned in this post. I currently have $5,200 subscribed to follow Tim Sykes at CV.IM. I receive a commission for every DVD or TimAlerts subscription bought through my affiliate link to Sykes’ web store. To see more details on my relationship with Sykes, please see my disclosures. I have a disclosure policy and you can find all my disclaimers there as well; those disclosures & disclaimers are incorporated by reference into this post.