TimothySykes.com TimothySykes.com I once turned 12,000 into 2 million. Now I'm gonna do it again, detailing every stock trade and investment idea on my blog! Articles
How To Short Sell aka What Is Short Selling aka Short Selling For Dummies a
2008-04-21 00:09:00 With all the time I spend scouring the landscape for ideal trades, preaching against random market noise and for disciplined trading, I often forget to explain the bare bones basics. Starting now, this will change—every few days I’ll have a detailed lesson. Today, I write about my all-time favorite trading strategy: short selling, which involves betting on a drop in an investment’s prices. So, how does this backwards-sounding strategy work? Ever hear the saying “don’t sell yourself short”? That means don’t believe you can’t succeed at something. Well, in short selling, that’s exactly what you’re doing—betting that xyz investment won’t succeed at increasing in value. Whether you’re betting against a stock, currency or commodity, you’re “selling that investment short.” Short selling is exactly like buying and selling the way that you’re only too familiar with except the order is reversed—you sell before you buy. The old adage “buy low... More About: Selling , Dummies , Sell , Short Selling
TigerLogic (TIGR): The Piece Of Crap Formerly Known As Raining Data (RDTA)
2008-04-20 15:35:00 Over the weekend, microcrap speculators everywhere have been debating (RDTA). While I wrote about the briefly HERE (Friday morning pre-market…before its 40% surge…thank you, thank you), I was right not to touch it in the morning cuz it was just too illiquid, but ‘twas wrong of me to be neck deep in fundamentally flawed / factually inaccurate but sub-par-chart-play EDEN, failing to see RDTA get pretty damn liquid mid-day after they released this fluffy PR about some crappy revolutionary new web search “add-on” and announcing a name/ticker change to blah bah blah. Unlike ignorant financial journalists, I’m not even gonna dignify these laughable pieces of s#@! news pieces by detailing their BS contents). Those of you who’ve read my book An American Hedge Fund know these crappy companies loveeee trying to hype themselves with meaningless name changes—no different than adding a “dot com” to the end of their name back in 1999-2000…except now they’re just tr... More About: Data , Crap , Piece , Raining
Sykes’ Saturday Seven: April 19th, 2008 Edition
2008-04-19 18:15:00 I’m never gonna be able to find exactly seven so here’s 7-ish articles from the week that was… THIS blog compares me to a Duke basketball player—I like the piece on the whole—especially the point he makes, but c’mon Duke basketball is just evil—I’m not—UConn forever! Gotta love that 5 hedge fund managers raked in over $1 billion each in personal earnings last year…America, f%#@ yeah! Welcome to my site’s newest sponsor, Speedtrader, a broker that charges $3/trade, has access to 30+ market makers and ECNs and is OTCBB and Pink Sheet friendly. Holy hell, I might just have to open an account and see what all the hype is about. Guess what I’m saying at the end of this video: … [visit site to read more] ShareThis More About: April , Saturday , Edition , 2008
Minimizing Trading Losses: Two Overnight Trades That Didn’t Go So Well
2008-04-19 15:46:00 From a few days ago, just hadn’t gotten around to writing about it…as I mentioned HERE, I shorted 2,000 (KOG) at $2.75 near the market close when it cracked sideways price action so I thought it’d go negative on the day—I was right that it did go red, but I didn’t take my 10 cents/share gains cuz I wanted a big drop—not a pesky $180 profit. Unfortunately, I had a flight to catch the next morning… Took a later flight to watch the market open—wasn’t comfortable at all since it opened above the sideways price action crack of $2.80, covered at $2.82, a $160 loss including commissions. Screw that, played I safe…I can take $160 losses all day long. Later in the day, it went decently red down to the $2.60 area, so I wasted $400, but when I play volatile stocks, I don’t worry about predicting every 10-20 cent move—I take my 20-50 cents-$1/share gains thinking stocks will make much larger swings (so I won’t have to be perfect in my timing) (such as THIS tra... More About: Trading , Losses
How To Short Sell A Media-Sponsored Pump & Dump
2008-04-19 00:39:00 I went into today thinking I wouldn’t trade cuz they were no ideal setups. But when $23,000-in-revenue-joke-of-a-company-TheS treet.com-pump-and-dump (EDEN) became a big 2-day runner, my market inefficiency sense kicked in and I immediately reserved 1,000 shares to short, just in case it might show signs of reversal. By 11am, it was up 40% on the day in the $2.60 range, and while there were some big buy blocks just below at $2.55 and $2.50, the sellers were persistent. This is what I call “a wall of sellers” and when stocks are up big already on little to no news with fading volume, this wall signals the end of any runup, at least usually. Sure, sometimes the wall collapses and the stock surges, but since TheStreet.com’s article was factually inaccurate and it’d already proven three times over the past 2 days it couldn’t break $2.75, I figured it’d be better to be early than late as I’d just try to double up if it went higher. When some sellers came in to try to take ... More About: Media , Sponsored , Sell , Short , Pump
The Latest Reason To Choose Technical Analysis Over Fundamental Analysis
2008-04-18 20:45:00 On Wednesday, it took me about 15 minutes to recognize and write about (VISN) breaking out to new highs, suggesting higher highs. And, last night, I spent a few minutes scanning through all my stock charts—not because I don’t care, but because I’ve been doing it for a decade so I know exactly what to look for—it’s easy…that’s why I mentioned RDTA in this morning’s pre-market post—it was a perfect perfect breakout, suggesting higher highs. … [visit site to read more] ShareThis More About: Technical , Analysis , Technical Analysis , Reason , Fundamental Analysis
Why I Just Shorted Eden Bioscience Corp (EDEN): TheStreet.com’s Factually
2008-04-18 18:36:00 As I mentioned in this post, this near 100% runup is entirely due to THIS laughable Thestreet.com article mentioning this failure of a company as a “below-the-radar company that produces Messenger, a highly effective and revolutionary agricultural product.” I could easily rip the company apart for its $23,000 in revenue in their latest quarter down from $189,000 just a few quarters ago—wow, their product must be really great! Even funnier is their yearly results—revenue of $350k vs. $4 million a few years back. Or before this miraculous article, EDEN was a $3 million company that was forced to do a 1-3 reverse split just two months ago in order to stay listed on the Nasdaq But I shorted 1,000 shares at $2.55–that’s all I could find, trust me, I wish I could borrow 50k–because I prefer to go to the heart of the matter, the fact that EDEN SOLD OFF THIS “REVOLUTIONARY” TECHNOLOGY AS IS DETAILED IN THEIR ANNUAL REPORT! From that beautiful an... More About: Eden
Hot Stocks: A Bunch Of Mediocre Wannabes aka Stocks Not Gone Wild
2008-04-18 10:32:00 No ideal trade setups, just getting bored by a bunch of mediocre chicks (GOOG) Great earnings, gotta respect the after-hours stock gains, optimistic people looking for an excuse…but be careful–$200 million in one-time currency gains—without it, wouldn’t be such a blowout…too pricey a stock to matter to TIM, but just be a little weary here. (FEED) Just cuz I said this is a typical smallcap raising capital at inflated prices, doesn’t mean those inflated prices will deflate anytime soon. Classic finance idiots gotta learn to read—what are you guys a bunch of typically coked out Wall Street ANALysts?—I also explained that whoever bought the $10 million at $16 now has a huuuuge incentive to pump the stock. It’s called a balanced blog post, deal with it suckas! (MMTIF) Still watching this TRUE pump and dump, again doesn’t mean I’m gonna short it—pump and dumps can last much longer than anyone expects, as (MXFD) shorts have learned the hard way … [visit ... More About: Stocks , Wild , Wannabes , Mediocre
Chart Of The Day: The Safe Way To Invest In Gold: Permanent Portfolio (PRPF
2008-04-18 01:53:00 After a big runup and a scary but small drop off its highs, gold is just above January’s highs and right at the all-important 50-day moving average (moving averages are hugely important to big badass trend traders). Commodities should continue to break out, the dollar should remain weak—solid argument for higher prices, but then again, it’s come sooooo far already. visit site to read more] ShareThis More About: Portfolio , Gold , Invest , Safe , Chart
In The Stock Market, Trust No One And No Company Cuz They’re All Sh@#!
2008-04-17 18:08:00 Last night, to a clearly shocked stock market club of about 75 people at the University of Buffalo, that was the main gist of my speech. Not just because I was burned pretty damn badly on one of these microcraps in which I naively believed or because of the media idiots who pretend to be researchers not even because of all the manipulation. No, it’s because out of all the thousands of penny stocks, I’ve ever trade/researched, only a handful have ever remained in double digits for more than a few days/weeks! The truth is that all these companies are pretty close to failing so they’re desperate for attention / capital. And it’s that desperation from which you can profit because it makes everything real simple-like. As those who’ve witnessed firsthand, I love speaking to big groups of people who for the most part have little to no stock market experience (if you wanna book me as a speaker, it’s $1,000 and travel expenses—just not worth my time for anything less since it s... More About: Stock Market , Market , Company , Stock , Trust
The SmallCap Pump & Dump Capital Raising Game: AgFeed Industries Inc. (
2008-04-17 14:45:00 What’s the ultimate goal of publicly-traded smallcap companies? They sell shares when their stock prices surge to raise the most capital possible. This morning, recent high-flyer Chinese pig-farmer (FEED) did just that, becoming the latest victor in the smallcap pump and dump capital raising game, raising a cool $10 million, selling shares at $16, less than 10% below their closing price of $17.40. What are they gonna do with this newfound capital—buy more pig farms of course! You can look at this two ways—it’s great for the company that they could raise so much $ at such high prices—usually these financing deals are done at much bigger discounts, think 25%+. The capital gives them a shot at true business glory, even if the odds are still decidedly against them. Then again, it’s dilution below market prices—the rich get special deals—so this stock should open lower as poor people sell their shares—wondering how to buy stock 10% below market prices (hint: you either... More About: Industries , Game , Capital , Pump
Stock Chart Of the Day: VisionChina Media Inc (VISN) Breaking Out
2008-04-16 21:04:00 Their corporate name pretty much says it all–this now $1 billion Chinese company who deals in digital media and advertising is breaking out to new highs today on typical 200,000-ish daily volume. Big-time revenue growth and surprising valuation–think 200%+ and a forward PE in the 20-25 range–added to the fact that people are looking for ways to play the upcoming Olympics and you’ve got some real potential here. Too gradual/uncertain for visit site to read more] ShareThis More About: Media , Stock , Breaking , Chart
Two Great Book Reviews And A DVD Review To Boot!
2008-04-16 16:32:00 I absolutely love getting emails like this: “Tim, I just wanted to thank you for An American Hedge Fund and PennyStocking. My boyfriend was the first to read your incredible book and now my boys, Charlie, 6, and Julian, 4, can’t get enough of it; they make me read it to them every night! And your DVD, oh my, it’s so taught us so much; so now we’re not afraid of any recession because as you say “you … [visit site to read more] ShareThis More About: Reviews , Book Reviews , Review , Great , Book
Travelling Most Of The Day But Here Are 5 Hot Penny Stocks To Watch
2008-04-16 13:18:00 Can you guess what my take is on these ? That’s right Pinky, it’s the same thing we do every night–short sell hyped up pump and dumps when they go negative on the day right before the market close. Of course they have to be up enough first, otherwise we just stalk. And remember, (SMI) is news-related and (BEXP) is a hardcore breakout so those really have to surge more / fade perfectly to tempt me…I’m no hurry on any of these, I’m gonna let them come to me… … [visit site to read more] ShareThis More About: Watch , Stocks , Travelling , Penny Stocks , Penny
Frustrations Of A Short Seller
2008-04-16 03:14:00 Awoke to discover no shares available to short of my top 2 potential plays—FEED and PSTI. PSTI was no biggie, it wasn’t a multi-day runner, but missing FEED pissed me off cuz it was a nice morning setup for a solid PREDICTABLE fall. Yesterday it looked like it was getting tired, but it still wouldn’t crack. Today, near the market open, there was a 14,000 share buy order at $15.40 and as that got taken out rather quickly, it was clear sign to short as longs who were up big over the past few days surely were afraid of a reversal. Sure enough, the morning tank was on as it quickly took out stop losses at $15 on its way to $14.70-ish, a nice 70 cent/share drop from an easy entry. Sure, it rebounded over the rest of the day—impressive really, but then again it’s a true breakout so I expect the stock to be stronger than a pump and dump—but the play here was to cover into the stop loss panic. Next! … [visit site to read more] ShareThis More About: Seller , Short
Did I Do That? Pump & Dump Exposes And Revolutionary Finance Websites
2008-04-15 20:41:00 With my CNOA pump and dump expose last night and it’s 25% tankage today, I gotta wonder: Possibly, probly, who knows…too bad I wasn’t short the stock myself—gotta learn to short sell these suckers … [visit site to read more] ShareThis More About: Finance , Websites , Revolutionary , Pump
It’s My Birthday And I’ll Send Out Beta Invites If I Want To!
2008-04-15 17:22:00 Today is my 27th birthday , woooo hooooo! Seems like just the other day I was this crazy looking kid in the picture below: Guess which one is me–yah, that pic alone is enough crazy celebration for one day, back to business. Unlike every other year, I’m not doing anything special—got a bunch of blog posts to … [visit site to read more] ShareThis More About: Beta , Birthday , Send
6 Small Cap Plays: Natural Gas Stocks Are White Hot
2008-04-15 14:25:00 (BEXP) If I wasn’t such a wus at buying breakouts—preferring to short later, this would be the play…4 million shorts getting squeeeeezed (PSTI) Another day, another multi-billion dollar drug market mentioned by the company, what could go wrong? Respect the pump but don’t believe the hype–we’re talking pre-clinical here, motor oil works at that stage, doesn’t mean it’ll stand up when they actually start testing humans! Risk-reward of shorting this sucker here, well, sucks…pray for a big short squeeze, don’t get squeezed yourself … [visit site to read more] ShareThis More About: Stocks , Natural Gas , Natural , White , Small
On CNOA, CNBC Aids And Abets Penny Stock Promoters
2008-04-15 02:14:00 Let me start by saying I have no problem whatsoever with penny stock promotion—these tiny / failing / fraudulent companies need all the exposure / hype they can get or else they’ll never raise any capital and fail / be exposed as the frauds that they are soon rather than later. But I do take offense when entertainment outlets like CNBC try to pass themselves off as credible researchers. As I’ve posted HERE and HERE, their bumbling has hurt too many investors and they’ve helped make people afraid of penny stocks—which I cannot permit. Now, one of their wannabe journalists / entertainers, Sri Jegarajah, has written the single most naïve penny stock article I’ve ever read, “Wild About Rice” in which Sri mistakes paid-for stock promotion for credible research forcing me to explain the rules of the game to all the poor schmucks who mistakenly view CNBC as a credible source. Besides quoting CNOA’s CEO (we all know how useless that is, what’s he gonna admit the compan... More About: Stock , Penny stock , Aids , Penny
Why Traders Should Ignore Corporate Mergers And The Financial Media Circus
2008-04-14 21:13:00 Thanks to this high profile acquisition news of Blockbuster and Circuit City, the financial media circus is working overtime today. CNBC, Fox Biz, Reuters, WSJ, WWE, Marketwatch, AP, Minyanville, TheStreet.com, Portfolio, Bizjournals, Techticker, Motley Fool, SmartMoney.com, Barrons, Businessweek, RealMoney, Forbes, FT, CNNMoney, Briefing.com and of course the Richmond Times-Dispatch have each written articles about it. No joke, seriously, check out the Yahoo! Finance news list—it’s reminiscent of my media logo collage. Within hours, we now have quotes from higher and lower-ups from both companies, competitors of both companies, industry observers, industry non-observers, economists, ANALysts, marketers, talking heads, journalists—everybody’s giving their useless opinion as to what this news means for consumers, competitors, investors, traders, the industry, other industries, society and the universe. Not to even mention all message board and blog buzz from those too unskill... More About: Media , Financial , Corporate , Traders , Mergers
Which Would You Prefer: $1 Million Or 1 Million Page Views?
2008-04-14 19:13:00 As detailed by Chapter 8 in my book An American Hedge Fund, I made my first million dollars in 4 years and before my 22nd birthday, hitting that mark—post-tax—after making $80,000+ on one crazy trade over a satellite internet connection while aboard a cruise ship in the South Pacific! (seriously) visit site to read more] ShareThis More About: Views , Page , Million
5 Penny Stock Trading Misconceptions
2008-04-14 17:10:00 Thanks to my talent for self-promotion, I’ve been exposed to a crazy number of investors, traders and market theories. Here are a few misconceptions that keep popping up and are in desperate need of correcting: 1.You can’t short sell stocks under $5, you’re a liar and a fraud! Ridiculous, of course you can! There’s no SEC rule against it, many crappy brokers just don’t allow it—hence their “crappy” title. If you want to learn Penny Stock ing, shorting low priced stocks is essential—that’s why I use Thinkorswim, I’m proud to do all my trading there—they rock! 2. Smallcap and microcap trading is a joke, if you want to prove yourself as a trader, trade large stocks, currencies or futures. Also, what kind of a trader is afraid to use leverage? Thanks in no small part to the misguided, and ultimately harmful, teachings of yet another entertainment outlet masquerading as journalists, Traitor Monthly, many people think trading is about making the most, being the best... More About: Trading , Penny stock , Misconceptions
8 Pumped Up Stocks To Watch For The Upcoming Week
2008-04-13 23:27:00 (FEED) Strong volume breakout, most likely due to the after-hours Forbes article—you don’t think somebody leaked that, of course they did! This industry is far more corrupt than you could ever imagine, don’t bother digging for the truth, just profit from it….based on its chart alone, I coulda woulda shoulda bought into the close on Friday, but now it’s too late…hopefully we can get a big naïvely-optimistic-investor spike to short into…c’mon piggies, don’t read my blog, just buy buy, buy!! (CNOA) Chinese rice play—pumped by the surprise tag team of CNBC and penny stock promoters—in depth article to follow tomorrow—be careful here, all is not is not kosher, not by a long shot … [visit site to read more] ShareThis More About: Watch , Stocks , Week , Upcoming
First Quarter 2008 Review: Earn 21% Every 3 Months And You’ll Live A Happ
2008-04-12 21:06:00 Coming off my best week since I started TIM 5+ months ago ($900-ish profits), it’s good to review past successes and mistakes. Without further ado, I give you the first quarter of 2008 in a nutshell, where TIM used small account size–finishing at $17,388–combined with PennyStocking to thoroughly dominate the performance of ALL major indexes, even while making tons of mistakes. Follow along and learn to do the same…already 5% higher in April and I’m just getting warmed up… Successes: How I Made An 8% Return Before Lunch How I Made 25% Just By Holding A Distinct Pattern Overnight How I Made 8% In One Morning, Leaving 40%+ On The Table One Day Later Why My Strategy Works Even For Stupid People God, I Love Short Selling Penny Stocks! … [visit site to read more] ShareThis More About: Review , Earn , Live , Months , Quarter
Sykes’ Saturday Seven: April 12th, 2008 Edition
2008-04-12 17:29:00 Stupid stupid teenage girls film assault on another teenage girl specifically to post video on Youtube, video’s gone viral, but they’re in jail…no joke…disgusting… 10 movie gadgets that have become reality Forget website analytics, time to start analyzing your email, but only if you have Gmail (Gratzie PK) Another successful—if not legendary—trader gives his rules for success (awww c’mon Todd, no banjos?) Learn your history, venture capital history that is Get the WSJ for free! Inside the panic at E*Trade…you stupid stupid longs don’t even know how close to disaster many of these financial firms are coming TIM Lesson: Never buy or short sell falling knives, much is happening behinds the scenes, none of it is predictable … [visit site to read more] ShareThis More About: April , Saturday , Edition , 2008
Short Selling Penny Stocks: Decent Profits But The Mistakes Remain
2008-04-12 03:30:00 Late Wednesday, when I posted this article predicting a 25% drop in (PSTI), I thought it’d be over and done with by Thursday. But that move didn’t complete itself til today, my baaaaaaaaaaaaaad! Can’t believe visit site to read more] ShareThis More About: Selling , Stocks , Penny Stocks , Profits , Short Selling
A Legendary Trader’s Music Video…Seriously
2008-04-11 23:00:00 Other than legendary billionaire traders, you should listen to legendary-not-quite-a-billionaire-but-sti ll-damn-successful-traders like Ed Seykota who’s featured in required reading visit site to read more] ShareThis More About: Music
Revolt Of The Untalented Financial Writers!
2008-04-11 20:55:00 Many of you are familiar with Seeking Alpha articles–mostly because SA’s founder David Jackson did a great job getting his content onto Yahoo! Finance–it ain’t due to the quality of work! It’s more because the financial media circus is all about more content. Breaking news, earnings, scandals…bleh blah blah, all the most active stocks must be covered and dissected by boring-ass stuck-up finance freaks, all of whom put together are less entertaining than a block of wood all while they consistently underperform the major indexes aka people who should have no audience whatsoever and instead focus on learning how to beat the market and not being scum-sucking fee-earning marketers who take advantage of the general public’s lack of market understanding. So, it’s rather funny to me–and it should be to you too–that many of these wannabes are revolting against SA, angry they’re not getting paid for their efforts. … [... More About: Financial , Writers , Revolt
Scanning The Horizon For Worthy Stock Trades
2008-04-11 15:04:00 Thanks to (GE)’s pathetic excuse for a business, it’s stormy out there today! No new stocks on my radar today…lots of microcrap traders are playing (FRPT) and (MNKD)—TheLion.com’s all hopped up on them as if they were Mountain Dew. I like volatile low priced stocks just as much as the next guy–ok, maybe more–but not those of falling knives—their movements are based on rumors and speculation of further contracts/news…I hate trying to predict news…no I prefer predicting the effects of sketchy promoters and gullible suckers. Speak of the devil..unfortunately, there’s no shares available to short of (PSTI) today—something tells me it’s gonna take the big dump under $4 today or Monday, but with my impatience there was little chance at me holding for a few days…as would be the correct course of action (as is usually the case aka you can do better than me!) (COT) looks ripe for a big fall, at least down to $3, then it’s a question of whether or... More About: Scanning , Stock , Worthy , Horizon
Easy Short Plays: Short Selling Hyped Up Failing But Spiking Biotechs The S
More articles from this author:2008-04-11 02:05:00 Last night, I posted about how excited I was to short another failing biotech into a ridiculous penny-stock-promoter-fueled price spike. Just like the last time, I wanted a 25% drop in stock price, but I didn’t get that, the price action just didn’t play out as I wanted it to—a decent 8% drop, but no big freefall. I still made $180 today off my wrong thinking, so life could be worse. After an initial 15 cent spike to $4.67—not scary at all cuz it was just one big buy 14k buy order (what is it with these guys, other one at $5 yesterday) that got taken out quickly—the question was could we take out multi-day support at $4.35-$4.40…most of the morning it couldn’t so I covered 700 of my 1,000 shares at $4.40, a disappointing 10 cent/share gain…then it bounced, then very gradually it declined, but still didn’t crack, so I covered my other 300 at $4.37, then gradually…so gradually…$4.35 got taken, then $4.31, $4.25—I re-shorted 1,000 at $4.25 looking for a domino t... More About: Selling , Plays , Short Selling , Easy , Short 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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