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Watchlist for September 28th: Short-a-thon!

It is not very common that I see so many good stocks on short watch for one day. Here are my top four, all potential shorts, though two could be decent buys if they exhibit continued strength.

VeriChip Corporation (NASDAQ:CHIP) – Tim Sykes thinks this company sucks and that is good enough for me. $3.00 is important support and it will be a good short if it breaks that.

Emergent Health Corp (Pink: EMGE) – The pump and dump du jour. Had its first red day Friday (which I messed up big-time trading) and more downside is likely. Short aggressively on red.

Luna Innovations (NASDAQ:LUNA) – Up from $1.20 to $2.20 in one day on no news and insane volume in one day. It hit an intraday high of $3.30. This will move big one way or another. It will be a nice buy on green or a short on fading and red.

Dataram Corporation (NASDAQ:DRAM) – Up from $2.20 to $3.97 in two days on huge volume and no real news. It was a beautiful technical breakout as it broke $2.40 and it broke longer-term resistance at $3.20. This could go either way, but I am short-biased. It should be traded like LUNA.

Disclosure: No positions. I have a disclosure policy.

Trade recap: A plethora of errors

Today was a horrible day. Not because my loss was huge; rather, it was acceptable. It was horrible because I messed up what should have been an easy trade. I even messed up pronouncing “plethora” in the video. Despite following EMGE closely over the last two days and seeing the exact same pattern play out a week ago in GVBP, I messed up the trade completely.

Daily profit: ($1487.99)

Weekly profit: $192.74

Disclosure: No positions. I have a disclosure policy.

Trade recap for September 24 & watchlist

Trades at IB:
+   BOT   800   YRCW   false   Stock (NMS)   5.987   USD   SMART   09:30:25       4.00
+   SLD   800   YRCW   false   Stock (NMS)   6.090   USD   SMART   09:32:28       4.00
BOT   100   AM   false   Stock   17.71   USD   SMART   09:36:37       1.00
SLD   100   AM   false   Stock   18.1002   USD   SMART   09:38:13       1.00

Daily profit: $111.08

Watchlist:

The only stock that really interests me for tomorrow: EMGE, which was a big mover again today. I doubt there will ever be shares of it to short.

Disclosure: No positions. I have a disclosure policy.

Watchlist for September 24: EMGE is the next pump!

Now that the previous big pump & dump, Genova Biotherapeutics (GVBP) has been halted by the SEC, it is time for the next big pump. I present to you, ladies and gentleman, Emergent Health Corp (Pink: EMGE). The stock is up 120% in two days now on modest volume of 700,000 shares per day. Why? Because they have a magic potion that will “revolutionize the vitamin business.” This magic potion is some random chemical or chemicals that they will add to a multivitamin. What will it do? Who knows? The company’s explanation makes no sense:

The company plans to introduce an adjuvant formula that enhances existing vitamin products currently on the market to assist in the production of normal cells.

If this were a legitimate product and not snake oil, the company might point out that the Vita-Stim Adjuvant(TM) improves the body’s absorption of vitamins (something that would be quite helpful and potentially lucrative). Instead, the company had this to say:

Our Vita-Stem Adjuvant(TM) compound stands to revolutionize the whole vitamin industry, as breakthrough adult stem cell based discoveries are further studied and introduced, providing high potency, scientifically researched regenerative properties to existing vitamin brands. It is predicted that today’s vitamin products will eventually become obsolete.

Yes, my friends, this company is putting stem cells into vitamins! Either that or they just cobbled together a bunch of pseudo-scientific babble for their press release (that seems more likely to me). This is a short on weakness or a long on strength, although considering it has already had a couple up days I probably won’t try taking it long. (Check out the company’s financials [pdf]: they had $90,000 in revenues in the past 6 months yet have a $40 million market capitalization, per Pinksheets.com)

ILI – They had really sketchy positive drug-type news on a small study. I would short on red, long on green. I am not sure which way it will go so I probably won’t trade it.

FTBK – Still short-biased. I did not like its choppy action today, though. I traded it today for $200. See my writeup on it from yesterday.

Disclosure: No positions. I have a disclosure policy.

Trade recap: Two solid trades in 3 minutes 19 seconds

My 30% gain in 92 seconds today on Interleukin Genetics, Inc (AMEX:ILI) highlights why you should read the comments on this blog. At 8:05 EST Preston wrote in a comment on last night’s watch list, “ILI pre-market leader on news this morning. Has some resistance way back on a 1 year chart that has been passed in pre-market. This could run higher.” I responded at 9:24 EST, 6 minutes before the market opened, saying “I like ILI … only 45m mkt cap still. That was not a huge study though so I wouldn’t get too attached to it.” I bought ILI 36 seconds after the market open and sold 92 seconds later for a $486, 30% gain.

Video recap. Note that the feature that shows my trades on the chart in IB TWS can be enabled by going to Configure > Global Configuration > Information Tools > Charts and then checking the box next to “my trades” under the heading “highlight on chart.” Please also note that my description of ILI’s news is incorrect: they had a diet program based on genetic tests; the news I was describing was for BSDM which was a big gainer yesterday.

Trades today:
+   SLD   10,000   FTBK   false   Stock (NMS)   1.450   USD   SMART   09:30:19       50.00
BOT   1,000   ILI   false   Stock   1.6000   USD   ISLAND   09:30:36       5.00
+   SLD   1,000   ILI   false   Stock   2.094   USD   AMEX   09:32:08       5.00
+   BOT   10,000   FTBK   false   Stock (NMS)   1.420   USD   SMART   09:33:19       50.00

Daily profit: $684.00

Disclosure: No positions. I have a disclosure policy.

Watchlist for September 23: I'm tellin' y'all, FTBK's an arbitrage

Let us say there is a little crappy bank, on the verge of death, that agrees to be bought by a publicly-traded SPAC. The deal appears to be a done deal. The shares of the crappy bank do not budge for over a month. Then, with no news, the bank’s shares jump 100% in two days. The shares of the SPAC barely budge. The bank on the verge of failure is Frontier Financial Corp (Nasdaq: FTBK) while the SPAC is SP Acquisition Holdings, Inc. (AMEX: DSP). SP Acquisition Holdings will give shareholders of FTBK 0.053 shares of DSP and .053 warrants (exercisable at $11.50, over 15% above the current market price) for each share of FTBK. This translates into a value of under $0.70 per FTBK share.

Here are their charts

There are two potential ways to play this. A trader could play this as a reverse merger arbitrage and buy DSP while shorting FTBK. I will look to play this as a daytrade by shorting FTBK with gusto when it goes red tomorrow or the next day. The risk either way is that somehow another buyer will come quickly and buy out FTBK at a higher price. I think that highly unlikely but the huge volume today could be indicative of some corporate raider taking that route. If DSP shareholders do not approve the merger and there is no other buyer, FTBK will likely be forced into bankruptcy.

VeriChip Corporation (NASDAQ:CHIP) -Up on news yesterday, but this move looks a bit overdone. I will look to short on green/red. The move is news-based so I won’t be very aggressive.

BSD Medical Corporation (NASDAQ:BSDM) – Big move today on news. It should be a good mover tomorrow, likely to the upside. I would be a buyer on red/green or a strong open as long as it doesn’t gap up much.

Gray Television, Inc. (NYSE:GTN) – After the last real news, earnings around August 7th, this stock was under $0.50. Now just under $3, this is an easy short on green/red or on a break below today’s lows. It was a good short for me today on green/red but it closed near yesterday’s close. Perhaps tomorrow will be its big down day. If it doesn’t do much tomorrow I’ll remove it from my watch list.

Disclosure: No positions. I have a disclosure policy.

Trade recap for September 22nd: Good shorts of GTN and CABL

I totally nailed shorts of two of the three stocks on my watchlist from last night. My trading plan was perfect for both. From my watchlist last night:

Gray Television, Inc. (NYSE:GTN) – After the last real news, earnings around August 7th, this stock was under $0.50. Now just under $3, this is an easy short on green/red. Was nice fader on green/red after first spike at the end of August, from $0.95 to $0.75 in three straight red candle days.

China Cablecom Holdings Ltd. (NASDAQ:CABL) – Up 100% in two days, just received a Nasdaq deficiency letter. Short on green/red.

GTN and CABL were also kind enough to fall at different times so that I could concentrate on one trade at a time.

My video trade recap:

Daily profit: $901.65

Trades at IB today:
SLD   2,000   CABL   false   Stock (SCM)   1.2000   USD   ISLAND   09:35:32       10.00
+   BOT   1,000   CABL   false   Stock (SCM)   1.070   USD   SMART   09:52:28       5.00
+   BOT   1,000   CABL   false   Stock (SCM)   1.065   USD   ISLAND   09:52:30       5.00
+   SLD   4,000   GTN   false   Stock   2.950   USD   NSX   10:52:45       20.00
+   BOT   2,000   GTN   false   Stock   2.720   USD   NYSE   11:00:08       10.00
+   BOT   2,000   GTN   false   Stock   2.680   USD   SMART   11:00:36       10.00
+   BOT   2,927   RT   false   Stock   8.947   USD   ARCA   15:07:34       14.64
+   BOT   10,000   RT   false   Stock   8.965   USD   SMART   15:07:40       50.00
+   BOT   10,000   RTK   false   Stock   1.970   USD   SMART   15:08:21       50.00
+   SLD   12,927   RT   false   Stock   8.947   USD   SMART   15:08:25       64.63
+   SLD   5,000   RTK   false   Stock   1.980   USD   BATS   15:12:38       25.00
+   SLD   5,000   RTK   false   Stock   1.980   USD   SMART   15:29:35       25.00

Disclosure: No positions. I have a disclosure policy.

Watchlist for September 22: GTN, CABL, CHIP

Gray Television, Inc. (NYSE:GTN) – After the last real news, earnings around August 7th, this stock was under $0.50. Now just under $3, this is an easy short on green/red. Was nice fader on green/red after first spike at the end of August, from $0.95 to $0.75 in three straight red candle days.

China Cablecom Holdings Ltd. (NASDAQ:CABL) – Up 100% in two days, just received a Nasdaq deficiency letter. Short on green/red.

VeriChip Corporation (NASDAQ:CHIP) – Big move today on patent news, but it went sideways in the afternoon and broke below support right before the close, just like SPDE last week. I expect it to be a nice short on green/red action tomorrow morning. (See the intra-day chart here.)

Disclosure: No positions. I have a disclosure policy.

Trade recap for September 21st: Boring day

Daily profit: ($16.00)

Disclosure: No positions. I have a disclosure policy.

Watchlist for September 21st: Gray Television, Inc. (NYSE:GTN) on short watch

Repros Therapeutics Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:RPRX) – I like this long on break of $1.50 or $1.46 or on red/green. True stinker of a company but that would be a huge break with no resistance until $2.20.

Gray Television, Inc. (NYSE:GTN) – After the last real news, earnings around August 7th, this stock was under $0.50. Now at $2.65, this is an easy short on green/red. Was nice fader on green/red after first spike at the end of August, from $0.95 to $0.75 in three straight red candle days.

Legend International Holdings, Inc. (Public, OTC:LGDI) – This spikes occasionally. If I remember correctly Tim Sykes and I shorted this last summer on a previous spike. It has some serious backers, but some highly sketchy aspects too. Previous spikes have been good shorts but so far it is not up enough for me to think it a good risk/reward.

Genova Biotherapeutics, Inc. (Public, OTC:GVBP) – One of the most egregious pump & dumps of the year if not the decade, this failed to bounce Friday after two big down days and I will thus finally look to build a longer-term short position in this.

Disclosure: No positions. I have a disclosure policy.