Trade recap for May 12th

Mentions of AEHI in chat:
[May 12, 2010 12:00:56 PM EDT]     JC      AEHI hod
[May 12, 2010 12:17:32 PM EDT]     JC    AEHI seems pumped hmm
[May 12, 2010 12:22:32 PM EDT]     JC    frigging… AEHI new hod
[May 12, 2010 12:24:59 PM EDT]     SteveS    AEHI how high will that go?!
[May 12, 2010 12:28:03 PM EDT]     Reaper    AEHI omg
[May 12, 2010 12:28:09 PM EDT]     JC    wtf…AEHI..
[May 12, 2010 12:30:28 PM EDT]     Reaper    shorting a bunch of AEHI … very risky
[May 12, 2010 12:30:46 PM EDT]     Reaper    short 3100 AEHI @ .97055

IFLG a nice short (in SogoElite, not shown below):
[May 12, 2010 2:57:57 PM EDT]     Reaper    shorted 1k IFLG @ 5.35 @ sogoelite … very tight 10 cent stop
[May 12, 2010 2:58:50 PM EDT]     Reaper    I like the big offers on IFLG @ 5.37 and 5.40
[May 12, 2010 3:05:59 PM EDT]     Reaper    covered 500 of my IFLG @ 5 still short 500
[May 12, 2010 3:09:42 PM EDT]     Reaper    out IFLG @ 5

My trades today (except those at SogoElite):
BOT    1,000    AMEL    false    Stock    1.3100    USD    SMART    10:26:48        5.00
BOT    1,000    AMEL    false    Stock    1.3100    USD    ARCAEDGE    10:27:22        5.00
SLD    2,000    AEHI    false    Stock    0.9300    USD    SMART    12:27:34        9.30
SLD    100    AEHI    false    Stock    1.3400    USD    SMART    12:28:53        1.00
+    SLD    1,000    AEHI    false    Stock    1.030    USD    SMART    12:30:22        5.00
BOT    1,500    AEHI    false    Stock    0.6000    USD    SMART    12:45:10        4.50
BOT    1,600    AEHI    false    Stock    0.6500    USD    SMART    12:58:53        5.20
+    BOT    5,000    DIVX    false    Stock    7.235    USD    SMART    15:48:17        25.00
+    SLD    2,500    DIVX    false    Stock    7.300    USD    ARCA    15:48:52        12.50
+    SLD    2,500    DIVX    false    Stock    7.400    USD    ISLAND    15:49:12        12.50
+    SLD    500    DIVX    false    Stock    7.510    USD    SMART    15:50:58        2.50
+    BOT    500    DIVX    false    Stock    7.550    USD    SMART    15:54:12        2.50

09:53:31    PRWP    B    0.8    1630    NITE
10:22:18    PRWP    S    0.83    1185    NITE
10:19:11    PRWP    S    0.83    445    NITE

Daily profit: $2,193.60

AEHI Intraday chart
aehi

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

Trade recap for November 12th: Reverse pseudo-arbitrage

Good recap today that explains how I practice share-class pseudo-arbitrage. Watch it.

+    BOT    1,000    CNLG    false    Stock (SCM)    1.815    USD    ARCA    09:36:18        5.00
+    SLD    1,000    CNLG    false    Stock (SCM)    1.850    USD    SMART    09:45:23        5.00
+    SLD    1,000    PLA    false    Stock    3.930    USD    SMART    11:39:39        5.00
+    BOT    1,000    PLA    false    Stock    3.830    USD    SMART    11:44:16        5.00
+    BOT    400    VRMLQ    false    Stock    21.500    USD    SMART    12:49:06        2.00
+    SLD    200    VRMLQ    false    Stock    22.450    USD    SMART    12:55:49        1.00
+    BOT    1,200    KNDI    false    Stock (SCM)    4.014    USD    DRCTEDGE    13:56:07        6.00
+    SLD    200    VRMLQ    false    Stock    23.260    USD    SMART    13:56:20        2.00
+    SLD    1,200    KNDI    false    Stock (SCM)    4.050    USD    SMART    14:10:12        6.00
SLD    30    BRK B    false    Stock    3396.70    USD    NYSE    14:53:56        1.00
BOT    1    BRK A    false    Stock    101965.00    USD    NYSE    14:53:58        1.00
BOT    1    BRK A    false    Stock    101989.00    USD    NYSE    14:56:02        1.00
SLD    30    BRK B    false    Stock    3396.54    USD    NYSE    14:56:37        1.00
+    BOT    400    VRMLQ    false    Stock    22.268    USD    SMART    15:43:27        2.38

Daily profit: $684.23

Disclosure: Long 60 BRK-B, short 2 BRK-A, long 400 VRMLQ. 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 September 3rd

I messed up what could have been a nice trade in IPII and ended the day with a tiny profit.

+    BOT    200    SVA    false    Stock    10.320    USD    SMART    09:30:52        1.00
SLD    200    SVA    false    Stock    10.35    USD    SMART    09:31:12        1.00
+    BOT    200    OXM    false    Stock    16.800    USD    NYSE    09:33:47        1.00
+    SLD    200    OXM    false    Stock    17.370    USD    DRCTEDGE    09:35:44        1.00
+    SLD    2,000    IPII    false    Stock (SCM)    2.400    USD    ISLAND    10:16:31        10.00
+    BOT    2,000    IPII    false    Stock (SCM)    2.428    USD    DRCTEDGE    10:30:49        10.50

Daily profit: $39.50

Disclosure: No positions. I have a disclosure policy.

August 18th trade recap: Blah, day 2

It probably wouldn’t have been so blah if my quotes at IB had been working in the premarket. I missed huge gains in RTK and AXL. Instead I made $14.01 by buying RDN and AFN. Both AFN and RDN were pre-leader longs. I played them both well; they just did not continue to go up.

+    BOT    1,500    AFN    false    Stock    .920    USD    NYSE    09:33:55        7.50
+    SLD    1,500    AFN    false    Stock    .930    USD    DRCTEDGE    09:39:32        7.50
+    BOT    200    RDN    false    Stock    8.040    USD    SMART    10:42:49        1.00
+    SLD    200    RDN    false    Stock    8.120    USD    SMART    10:52:49        1.00
+$14.01

I also bought my 249 shares of ZRBA.

BOT    249    ZRBA    false    Stock (SCM)    3.75    USD    ISLAND    11:36:43        1.24

AXL I bought late in the day as it hit a new high. I played it too big considering how poor I am at these. If I had played it smaller I would have probably held overnight for a likely gap-up.

+    BOT    1,000    AXL    false    Stock    5.700    USD    SMART    15:35:32        5.00
+    SLD    1,000    AXL    false    Stock    5.750    USD    NYSE    15:37:33        5.00
+$40.08

MERC another fat-fingered short, far from ideal. I covered literally 10 seconds before it plunged 20 cents. Oh well.

+    SLD    3,000    MERC    false    Stock (NMS)    1.500    USD    SMART    15:50:08        15.00
+    BOT    1,500    MERC    false    Stock (NMS)    1.460    USD    DRCTEDGE    15:53:47        7.50
+    BOT    1,500    MERC    false    Stock (NMS)    1.500    USD    ISLAND    15:55:06        7.50
+$30

Today’s Profit: $84.09

Disclosure: Long 249 ZRBA. I have a disclosure policy.

August 5th Trade Recap

Another video recap today.

Here are my trades:

Short GGC 1000 35.514
Cover GGC 1000 37.16
($1626.00)

GGC was bouncy and my entry wasn’t great. I should’ve shorted at $36.80 on break of $37 resistance, not on break of the day’s low.

+    BOT    6,000    SCLN    false    Stock    4.164    USD    ARCA    14:58:19        30.00
+    BOT    6,000    SCLN    false    Stock    4.173    USD    ARCA    14:58:22        30.00
+    SLD    4,000    SCLN    false    Stock    4.220    USD    BATS    15:00:36        20.00
+    SLD    6,000    SCLN    false    Stock    4.214    USD    BATS    15:00:52        30.00
+    SLD    2,000    SCLN    false    Stock    4.320    USD    BATS    15:11:49        10.00

SCLN was a TimAlert. +$661

+    SLD    0    ICOG    false    Stock    .000    USD    SMART    16:16:17        30.00
+    BOT    0    ICOG    false    Stock    .000    USD    SMART    16:16:27        4.50
+    BOT    0    ICOG    false    Stock    .000    USD    SMART    16:15:51        23.00

I had made $980 on ICOG but the Nasdaq canceled all those trades so instead I lost the $57.50 I paid in commissions.

Overall profit today: ($1,022.50)

FRNTQ.pk and WUHN did what I exptected them to do. WUHN a bit too choppy and too wide of a spread to easily trade. FRNTQ.pk easy short but I was distracted; I had a sell order ready but didn’t execute because it was already down 10%. At one point it was down 42% on the day.

Disclosure: No positions. I have a disclosure policy.

July 31st trading recap

As I wrote last night, I have some house-guests, so this is a short post.

Here are today’s trades, with little comment:

  • +    BOT    200    GGC    false    Stock    16.410    USD    SMART    09:31:38        1.00
    +    SLD    200    GGC    false    Stock    17.610    USD    SMART    09:41:51        1.00

GGC was negative in pre-market. I bought it just a minute after open after it jumped green. I had incredible patience for me, selling 10 minutes later after it twice failed to take out big offers at $18.10. This turned out just like I thought it would.

  • +    BOT    800    IBNK    false    Stock (NMS)    1.829    USD    BATS    10:01:47        4.00
    +    SLD    800    IBNK    false    Stock (NMS)    1.760    USD    SMART    10:16:04        4.00

Pre-leader long on breakout to new high. Small trade. My winning ratio on this type of trade is poor and I net about breakeven overall.

  • BOT    200    GERN    false    Stock (NMS)    8.8397    USD    SMART    11:12:34        1.00
    +    SLD    200    GERN    false    Stock (NMS)    8.970    USD    ARCA    11:13:50        1.00

Bought on red/green (a bit slow). Halfway decent trade.

  • BOT    500    INO    false    Stock    2.01    USD    BATS    11:21:02    BookTrader    2.50
    +    SLD    500    INO    false    Stock    2.040    USD    ISLAND    11:22:18    BookTrader    2.50

Pre-leader long. If I had given it more room to run I wold’ve had an easy 30 cent profit.

  • BOT    500    VHC    false    Stock    4.38    USD    SMART    14:26:39        2.50
    +    SLD    500    VHC    false    Stock    3.898    USD    AMEX    14:27:50        2.50

Dumb play on VHC, I had the right idea but I was slow to sell and buy. I am generally bad at quick-moving plays like this that can go either way.

  • +    SLD    3,000    PAL    false    Stock    3.110    USD    SMART    14:25:52        15.00
    +    SLD    3,000    PAL    false    Stock    3.088    USD    ISLAND    14:28:29        15.00
    +    BOT    3,000    PAL    false    Stock    3.020    USD    ARCA    14:59:31        15.00
    +    BOT    3,000    PAL    false    Stock    3.030    USD    SMART    14:59:48        15.00

PAL was what I call a fat-fingered short. I don’t mind going reasonably large in these; risk/reward is good although this strategy leads to occasional big losses. In this case it was CNBC pumping it. 40 cents (18%) vertical moves in 30 seconds are in general good shorts unless there is real news. It didn’t turn out as I predicted but I still had a halfway-decent profit.

For your reference, here are my year-to-date profits for the above-mentioned trading strategies:

Fat-fingered shorts:

Total Profit $2,889.99
Avg Profit % 0.55%
Wtd Avg Profit 0.86%

Pre-leaders longs:

Total Profit $67.89
Avg Profit % 0.66%
Wtd Avg Profit 0.26%

Today I netted +$348.39.

Disclosure: No positions.

The Greatest stock chart of the year: Aspyra (APY)

This is a classic trading post from my investment blog GoodeValue.com. I have added a few more details to the end of this post.

This brought tears to my eyes … never before have I put a limit price on a big order so far below the market price, but alas there were no shares.

Here is how it played out … I caught this on the Scottrade MarketMovers list around $1.50 on the way up, was ready to short as the bid backed down to $1.30, could not find borrows, but hoping that IB could find borrows I placed a limit short for 5,000 shares at 90 cents (yes, 40 cents below market) … no shares became available.

This is the one-hour chart from 3pm EST to 4pm EST today.

This is a perfect example of what I call “fat-fingered shorts” … stocks with little volume where the price and volume shoot straight up on no news. They are likely caused by traders accidentally placing market orders instead of limit orders. This is one of the easiest charts to short sell. I usually run across one decent one a week. Of course, you need to get in on these quick; because of these constraints this is only a viable trading strategy for people who are already full-time daytraders and the potential profit is limited. As of this re-posting on 7/27/2009, my net profit in 2009 from similar trades is $2,505.99, with an average profit margin of 0.79%.

Disclosure: No position.