Q&A Index

This page serves as an index to all my Q&A posts. Use your browser to search for a particular question on this page. I do have a separate FAQ that answers shorter and simpler (and more frequent) questions.

April 25, 2010
1. Should I use market orders to get a fill on fast-moving stocks?

April 2, 2010
1. Best sources for stock news

February 27, 2010
1. What do you mean when you say a stock is over-extended?
2. What do the new SEC short selling rules mean for traders, particularly short-biased penny-stock traders? I give my opinion of what it means to me. Check out this WSJ blog post explaining the rule and this more-detailed Bloomberg article.

February 20, 2010
Video #1:
1. Do you pay attention to the overall market and does that affect the stocks you trade?
2. How does the amount of shares a stock pumper is compensated relate to and affect the volume in a pumped stock?

Video #2:
1. How do you find pumped stocks and stock promoters?
2. What is the general learning curve for trading stocks as you do?

February 15, 2010
1. If I’m Tim Sykes’ best student, why is my profit margin so much worse than his?

February 15, 2010
Video #1:
1. Can you trade OTC stocks with Sogotrade and how are their borrows for shorting OTC stocks?
2. Will ThinkorSwim have better borrows on shorts once they merge with Ameritrade? Answer: no.
3. Why did my stop loss on my long position in CRWG get executed before the market opened?
4. How do you set a bracket order on an already-open position at IB? Answer: No clue.

Video #2:
1. How high will PEPR go? How did I know it was going to be pumped? Answer: I didn’t.
2. Why don’t you respond to my email about a specific stock?
3. Have I ever been asked by stock promoters to join in a stock pump & dump?
4. [Question answered previously and not answered]
5. Which brokers have a scrolling high of the day (HOD) list like Scottrade?

February 11, 2010
1. How do you set up your pages on Interactive Brokers TWS so that symbols don’t disappear when you disconnect?
2. Do you recommend Tim Sykes’ TimAlerts service to those who have no experience trading? Do his DVDs explain very basic stuff like how to make a trade on a trading platform?

February 10, 2010
1. How do I deal with the wash sale rule?

February 6, 2010
Video #1 questions:

1. What is up with Interactive Brokers’ Time & Sales feature? It seems to have multiple prints of large trades that don’t occur?
2. How do I enable AQS Stock Loan / Borrow in IB? (I suggested seeing my post on that and then signing up to my email list so you can see another post on it; there is a link on the right-hand side of my blog).
3. How should I determine my position size for trades?

Video #2 questions:
1. Do you know about using Canadian brokers to trade penny stocks or to evade the PDT?
2. How did you get the nickname Reaper?
3. It seems that the term ’short squeeze’ is used too loosely? How do you tell if something is a real short squeeze or if it is just momentum buyers?
4. How do you find stocks that you buy that are potential pumps?
5. What are IB’s commissions for very low-priced stocks?

January 30, 2010
1. How do you set hotkeys in IB TWS?
2. How to configure charts in IB TWS for indicators other than volume?
3. How can you configure IB charts to show news?
4. Really long question about level 2.
5. What will I do when I am rich and my account is too large to trade penny stocks any more?
6. What do I do with the money I don’t keep in cash in my brokerage accounts?
7. What are the best investments for traders?

I probably do not completely any of the questions. Part of the reason is I will not do basic legwork for you, my beloved readers. I am happy to help, but please put some effort into trying to learn things on your own.

January 27, 2010
1) What settings do I use on my charts in Interactive Brokers Traders Workstation.
2) How does one trade without level 1 real-time data? Is level 2 necessary? How do I see a large bid and decide to cover a short because of that?
3) Who are my favorite traders and what are my favorite trading books?

January 23, 2010
1. How does one interpret the cumulative size and average price on Interactive Brokers’ Market Depth?
2. How do you find pumps and is it a good strategy?
(Note: I will not answer any more questions on this topic because besides being ethically dubious, buying pumps is the riskiest kind of trade I have done and I do not recommend it.)

January 21, 2010
1. Where can I go to get good OTC level 2?
2. How can I scan for stocks getting volume spikes?
3. Where do you get the live news that I have seen on your trade recaps?
4. How do I scan for OTC stocks I’m looking to buy to hold overnight? I should add the caveat that this strategy has lost me money and is very risky. I don’t see why I get so many questions about one of my worst trading strategies.
5. How do I determine which stocks to trade on non-OTC stocks?

January 20, 2010
1. What are the cancel order and trade bust fees at Interactive Brokers?
2. What is the difference between bundled and unbundled commission structures at Interactive Brokers?
3. Where do I find out about different stock promoters (pumpers)?

January 15, 2010
1. How do I spot volume breakouts during the day?
2. How do I set alerts at IB?
3. How did I get an account at Goldman Sachs?
4. How do I find stocks moving in the pre-market?

23 thoughts on “Q&A Index”

  1. Hi,

    I was wondering if you are subscribed to any of the Market Data things that Interactive brokers provide. If so, which ones? And if not how do you get the data from?

  2. Good Index. It almost has all the Q&A market. But what cought my attention is your January 27, 2010 Q&A number 3. I really love to answer that one.

    “Who are my favorite traders and what are my favorite trading books?”

    One of the books I would recommend would be “Practical Speculation” by Viktor Neiderhoffer. Very rarely I have read a book with such an excellent back dating capability. Will open up your mind to different avenues and coax you to look at everything with a logical trend set.

    The second book is: How to Make Money in the Futures Market by Charles Drummond it contains 585 pages. What a joy to read. I in no way support the idea of trading using his dot methodology, but his book is a hoot and gets you thinking all about price action again.

  3. Tim’s basic strategies are to buy earnings and contract winners and to short pump and dumps.

    Do you have any other strategies you use?

    Tim seems to indicate that if you set stops, you’ll just get taken out prematurely by market maker manipulation. I wonder, though, if that’s more true for less liquid Bulletin Boards than for NASDAQs.

    Do you use stops, especially to trail a contract or earnings winner?

    1. Well, also shorting supernovae like the marijuana stocks recently. I don’t use stops — I just use mental stops and when it is time to get out I just put a limit sell order.

  4. Hi MG,

    I have been following you as well as Sykes and Superman for years now. I finally got into the market last year and used Suretrader. I ended up losing some money and now it is tax time so I printed out my iBoss account and the total loss for the year. My tax lady said I needed a 1099 form from them though. I have no idea how to get this from them. If you can provide any information regarding this it would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks, Nick.

    1. Suretrader is offshore so they have no responsibility to issue a 1099. I think you have to use the trade records they provide you. I did have a similar situation once when I was with a proprietary trading firm and they should have issued me a 1099-MISC but did not. So I just gave my account records to my accountant and I think he wrote an explanatory note to the IRS about why there wasn’t a 1099-MISC. Also, do look into the issue of whether you have to file any extra reports because Suretrader is offshore — see this blog post: https://www.goodetrades.com/2012/01/some-important-advice-for-those-who-use-offshore-brokers-like-suretrader/

      You may need a more experienced accountant / one who deals with offshore accounts.

  5. Hey Michael,
    I am just born into this ocean of money where I want to learn to become the shark. I’ve read most of the books in your reading list & have done a lot of research as well. The more I read, the confusing it is. There’s so much information out there, I don’t know what to believe. You seem less of salesman and more of DIY kinda guy. Any suggestions, or just pay a little bit to everyone to show me their tricks and see what works for me…

    1. Read all my blog posts, especially the trade recap ones. Read all the posts at welcometothegutter.com. Look at all my trades (and those of other successful traders) on Profit.ly and look for patterns.

  6. Hi Mike

    I’m new with the Shorting aspect. So when I find shares to short, lets say 1000 shares and the ave price is 3.25. How much will it cost me to borrow those share? Is it based on the ave of the price or just a percentage of what the broker wants to charge?

  7. Hi Mike,

    I was trying to reverse engineer to a promoter. The recent WSTI promotion was done by: Wall Street Revelator / Andy and Lynn Carpenter which i learned from kroy and your blog.
    1. Is it wise to subscribe to Wall Street Revelator in order to receive the promotional material?
    2. Do you have experience or recommend Promotion Stock Secrets?
    Thank you.

  8. Hi Michael, I have a question, do you think it’s possible to use td ameritrade free level 2 qutoes instead of paying for suretrades level 2, and use suretraders web platform for trading to get out of the pdt rule. Hope this makes sense.

  9. Hi Michael,
    I realize this might be a stupid question, but could you please explain what the difference is between stock scanners and trading platforms? If a broker like TradeZero is said to have a weak platform, can I use a stronger platform like Stockstotrade, all while still using TradeZero as my broker? Being a non-US-citizen and a beginner trader I don’t have access to most US-brokers!
    thanks alot!
    Nobu

    1. A trading platform lets you trade. A stock scanner helps you find interesting stocks based on price action or news. Many trading platforms have stock scanners built in. A couple stock scanners can also work as trading platforms (I can’t recall them off-hand).

  10. Hi Michael!
    I am back in your blog again! Do you mind sharing on how to set up the hot keys? I believe many of us are having trouble on using the hotkeys.

    Thanks!

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