These mostly low priced stocks have seen some dramatic returns recently.

I mean a stock that goes up from $1.00 to a $1.30 in a few weeks is a dramatic return. Historically speaking, buying penny stocks has not been a good way to make money (IN MY OPINION), but this market is starting to see a lot of "speculation". Not unlike we were seeing in the late 90's.

I am sticking to companies that are making money and are growing their earning at a rate of at least 15% per year, even better if they are growing at 20%. Of course you still have to consider other factors, like debt, market sector, PE, ROA, etc.

Ldvee, I agree. Unjustified panic selling can create great opportunities, but it is necessary to be aware that some panic selling IS justified!

I wasn't trying to be defensive, by the way, and I didn't interpret your comments as "slamming". I think this is a great topic for conversation.

Fuck You Ldvee!

I am not defensive and I handle criticism very well.

I just sold ARTX for a 31% return in 2 days. Not bad at all...

I took profits on GADZ today, too. In at 3.80 on 9-15, and out at 5.28 on 9-19, for over a 38% profit (3467.5% annualized). That was a nice trade.

Fuck you too Kendricks. You are making to much money like all ex-Republicans!

Compromise

Bought back half my calls and 1000 shares will be assigned at $30 per share on Monday.

9-19-03 Bought to Close 10 Sept. 30 Calls $1,904.00 $0.95

9-19-03 Net Cost Per Share $36,406.00 $18.20

9-22-03 1000 Shares Assigned/Sold ($29,946.00) ($14.97)

9-22-03 Net Cost Per Share 1000 Shares Left $6,460.00 $6.46
Current Value $31,830

oh man, I just got home, made my money the old fashioned way, worked 11 hours today slinging code to make the Internet work better.

Hey did I win this week?

Ldvee won the prize last week. I am tired of playing this game.

I think the new game is pick a stock and see who does the best over a short period. Say two weeks.

I pick CYD and will use the closing price today as my entry price.

I agree, that Dow pick thing has been played out. I pick PRTN, and use Friday's closing price as my entry price.

Now wait a minute.

You have to be a mutual fund money manager to buy stocks today at last Friday's prices.

To make it fair you need to use todays closing price.

Damn Kendricks, PRTN is up 20% today!

I sold my PRTN for a 24% profit today. Not bad, considering I just bought it last week.

I don't have a respectable entry right now for the contest, but will post one as soon as I find it.

Damn Kendricks you are good. Congrats again.

No respectable pick? LOL!
Everything you touch except FONR is a quick winner.
You are making huge annualized profits.

I personally was pummelled today. NAS down 1.6% but all four of my techs were down twice that 3.2 %or more.

I guess we are already in the dreaded mutual fund selling season and OCT warning season.

There goes my BA trip for the time being.

I arrived home from TJ at 6 am but the damage was already done in the pre market so I just had to ride out the day.

I'm going to have to start following your picks as I would be doing cart wheels if I was making 20%-40% returns or more each week.

Hey Max, I will try to come up with a good pick tonight. I will post it if I do. This has been a pretty good run lately!!!

My entry is PSMT, at today's closing price of 7.30. It looks like the dumping is done, and I think the odds favor an upward bounce at this point.

Is the contest until the close on October 3? I think we should be permitted to sell at any time before then, and the winner is the one who gets the highest percentage gain before selling.

I bought back into MWY this morning again, too. I think it will rise from here over the coming months, although it may not be a quick gainer.

You might want to check out MERX.

I bought 2000 shares today.

MERX does look like a good stock, but I just can't bring myself to buy something that has risen so much recently. I know there are a lot of people who subscribe to the Nicolas Darvis momentum school of thought, but it's not what I'm suited for.

It is all about earning and cash flow.

This company is expanding rapidly and does business with a lot of large companies.

It is true that it was a better buy in April at $3.50 than the $17.05 I paid for it.

Sold my MERX at a nice profit for owning less than 24 hours. Needed some spending money for tomorrow.

Damn market is looking very over bought and it is about time for a 300-500 point correction while our economy continues to do better.

I had several stocks called away last Friday and I think I will wait until next week or maybe even longer before I reinvest.

Price of oil dropping and tax refunds going into the system with the fed holding rates down to historic lows makes for a bull market this year and next.

I just bought some SUNW at 4.08, and sold the Nov 4 calls for .4. Looks like a decent percentage trade to me (over 8% in less than two months), and if SUNW pulls back, I'll continue to sell 4 calls until it is finally assigned. I look at this as a relatively safe trade with decent profit potential.

I get nauseous everytime I see the stock symbol SUNW.

I once had a client who sold some land for around $80,000 and I suggested he put part of it in Sun Micro. That was in 2000 and the price was above $100, pre-split. When he transferred the account to a "financial advisor" and basically told me to go fuck myself in 2002 he still owned the 400 shares and it was selling for around $15-$18. I wonder if he ever sold it?

Good Luck

Hey, it could have been worse.

It could have been my money.

Kendricks you are in on SUNW?
Awesome! The Midas touch is on my team!


BEn it was worse for me,
SUNW makes me ill also since it is the one of the stocks that destroyed me.

MAde over $200,000 off an original $10,000 investment and a few more margin buys and then refused to sell as it began to crash.
I had a gambler mentality and hated loosing
so as any idiot gambler does I got pissed, competitive and started throwing good money after bad, I kept buying thousands of shares on margin all the way down to $12 and kept getting margined out each time at big losses
Now I am left with a measley 2900 shares and huge capital gain losses to carry forward for who knows how many years.

PS. WHat the fuck is up with this pounding in the market today?

Opec is cutting back on production and if they realy do it(They cheat a lot) it could have a major negative effect on our economy.

Drill in ANWAR and in some of our National Parks and we could possibly make those Arab countries and Venezuela back down.

(Message edited by ben on September 24, 2003)

Wow, there are a lot of SUNW stories out there. A guy I work got in SUNW early, rode it all the way up, and then all the way down again.

I wish SUNW longs all the best, but I am just in it for the covered call trade right now. Even if it does pull back from here, I think the chances are excellent that I could ride out any dip by selling more calls until eventually it comes back to 4 (and ending up with a nice profit for my trouble).

I don't like to have all my money in higher risk trades all the time, so trades like this seem to be a relatively safe place to park some cash, and still make decent returns.

The problem with many investors in general is that they "freeze in the headlights" when forced to make a decision. So they will just hold on and watch their stocks continue to go down.

I have learned through painful experiences that it is OK to take a profit or sell a stock if it drops 10-15% and move on.

The buy and hold on for the rest of my life can be a dangerous strategy. I was almost completely out of stocks for two years and almot 100% in bonds until eighteen months ago. I started liquidating the bonds over this eighteen months and I am now 10% bonds 20% cash and 70% stocks.

I bought 10,000 shares of HEC this morning at .67

I usually don't buy stocks under a buck, but the price action, recent surge in volume, underlying fundamentals, and world energy situation make this one look like a high probability winner to me.

Hopefully this does not turn into one of those painful learning experiences Ben was referring to....

Hey Ldvee, are you still in EK?

This is great! My HEC shares are up 14.9% from my entry four hours ago. I wonder what that is annualized?

Damn,

You really do have a pact with the devil!

Yeah, I noticed EK cuts its dividend by 75% and broke down below its 52 week low.

I think/hope Ldvee sold this stock.

Hey, The light just went on?

Isn't Harken the company that bought out George W's oil company (way back even before he was the Gov of Texas) and many felt he was bailed out in a "sweerheart deal"?

Ben, I think you are right. I had forgotten all about that, but now that you mention it, it does ring a bell.

I almost took a quick profit when HEK broke .80, but I consulted with Satan, and he told me to hold on until at least tomorrow. I sure hope he's right.

So, how are you feeling about that PSMT buy? You still holding or did you dump?

I'm still holding PSMT, but I'm not feeling very good about it. Anyway, it's still above its lows from the big recent selloff, and I think the odds of a bounce or upmove are still decent, but it's not a trade I am very excited about or proud of.

I could be completely wrong on this one, and things could be much worse than I realize. If it breaks the lows of last week, there could be more serious trouble than I initially thought, and I would have to seriously consider cutting my losses. On the other hand, it could just be down today due to general market pressure on a shit day. It's hard to say, in my opinion.

I did violate my own rules on this one to some extent. I really don't like to buy stocks that have this much debt. If I get my bounce, I'll probably get out pretty quick.

Maybe Amzn will go up tomorrow morning...

-DJ

I got out of EK a while back.

If you guys would expand the bet to also picking the biggest loser every two weeks I might join in. That way I'd stand a chance of winning!!

I've even lost the eating food in Mexico gamble last week. All the times I've eaten raw oysters from street carts with no ill effects and I get blasted after eating hot, cooked vegetable soup and chips and salsa at a clean little restaurant in Rosarito that I've eaten at several times. Earthquakes in my gut, fever (gone now), severe shits, it's horrible. Doc has me on antibiotics and lomotil but says if it's viral I'm going to have to wait it out. Even missed work which I very seldom do, it's the only way I make money ;-). Actually the portfolio is doing nicely.

Anyway, the new game, what are we doing now? What's the rules? When's the next entry date? Who's going to be the score keeper? Hopefully we can get some more participants to decrease the likelihood I'll finish last.

I pick PG, Procter & Gamble Co, I KNOW the sales of one of their products, Charmin, have increased dramatically in the past few days.

I suggest that the new game start on the 1st and 15th of every month. You pick a stock at its current ask at the time of entry at any time during the two week period, and then sell it at any time prior to the end of the two week period (if you don't sell in time, you get the closing price on the 14th or 31st). Biggest percentage gainer wins. Does anyone have any objection to this?

My entry, PSMT, is kind of taking it in the ass. I'm not throwing in the towel yet, though.

I also fucked up on HEC. I should have sold when it broke .80 yesterday. If I had, I could have locked in profit, and even bough back my shares below .70 this morning.

I hate it when I make dumbass moves. Oh well, maybe this morning's drop was just a fakeout, and it will power even higher today. I'm selling if it does.

Here's another dilemma now. I bought a small amount of HQNT last month at .85, and they have been underwater virtually the whole time I owned them (other than a brief rise to .90).

I hung in there, though, and HQNT is now back at .85. Do I (a) snatch back my cash to use elsewhere, or (b) hang in there, hoping that it will blast off out of the base?

I fucking pussed out on HEC and sold at .69. Maybe it will shoot back up, but I am sick enough about not snatching my $1300 profit yesterday, the last thing I want is to own 10,000 underwater shares of this fucker. At least I still made $200 less commissions. Better than losing, anyway.

Added to my ARQL position, which is slightly underwater. I think this one is going to pay off eventually, and is relatively safe, due to its nice cash position and other fundamentals.

FONR is really pissing me off. I want to add to my position, but I own too much of it already.

Got out of HQNT at break even, and sold MSSN for a nice profit. Anyone else trading out there?

I bailed on PSMT. Took a nice loss, out at 6.75. That was just a bad trade on my part - a good example of when NOT to buy a stock just because it is selling cheaply.

Interesting advise guys. I'm looking at EK and TUP right now since the value appears to be there with their recent falls.

TUP is interesting not because of North America but internationally, especially considering the price of the dollar.

Your thoughts?

Neither of those companies fit the profile of stocks I like to invest in, due to their large debt loads. My success has been best finding beaten down stocks that look as if they are turning around, have lots of cash and no debt.

This is not to say that EK and TUP *won't* go up from here, as they certainly may.

I had a pretty nice run of good picks going until today. Today's action on HEC and PSMT were really disappointing to me. I now need to slink away and lick my wounds, and do some more research...

EK is an interesting story. It's value was in the large dividend it paid and of course they just cut that by 70% so they can "remake" the company from film based imaging to digital imaging. Both imaging, but two different worlds. Its drop was for a very good reason and totally understandable. I don't know if it's oversold now, but it's a different kind of investor that will be buying EK.

Kendricks, I note that you picked some winners when the overall market was going up and now it's a different tune, during a week when the market went down 300 points, more than a coincidence I would guess.

The historical odds for next month are against you. Maybe October is a good month to trade less and research more.

I'm still watching the SUREE saga. The bet now is whether or not they will get delisted from the NAZ. There was a meeting with NAZ officials this past week, no press release yet.

Their new CEO is from the venture capital world and is a turn-around specialist. He just may take it into the pink sheets, let his cronies big up a bizillion shares at 0.25 and then get it back on the exchange for a handsome profit. It seems like a very capitalist thing to do, and a ploy that might be very easy to accomplish.

A classic fast buck.

Ldvee, I think there is a lot of merit to your comments to me. It appears that my strategy is good to beat the broad market's returns dramatically in a good market, but pretty much sucks during a down market.

I hate making good gains, and then giving a chunk of them back. I'm still up about 33% overall over the past year, though, so I can't complain too much. The percentage would be much higher, if some of the recent gains I made recently didn't have to help me recover from that REGN tragedy I experienced earlier in the year...

Of course, the lessons I learned from that REGN debacle were important, and I consider the tuition I paid worthwhile. If you recall, I had a very large (for me) position in REGN, in order to take advantage of a very high covered call premium it was paying. REGN was a speculative biotech company, which lost 70% of its value overnight when it had a bad drug trial come out.

The critical mistakes I made on this trade were:

1. I had too large a position on a speculative company that was selling for much higher than its intrinsic value, merely to try to make a good percentage gain on a covered call trade, and

2. I sold at the fucking bottom. OUCH!!!!

Now I trade covered calls much more safely, and I was able to profit from this lesson on ALT, when a similar pattern repeated. An expensive lesson though, to be sure.

Other than covered call trades, the only ones I have open now are FONR, MWY, and ARQL. The covered call trades I am in are all down a little too, but I don't worry much about them, as I think they are all pretty solid, and I will just continue to sell new calls as the old ones expire until they are assigned.

Bio-techs in general are the most volatile/dangerous area of the market in my opinion.

Ben, what do you think about the Sep-Oct curse? Is it better to just ease out of positions until the buying starts again?

I just liquidated (In the last hour)some stocks that I had both profits and losses as I was trying to do some matches for tax purposes.

I also have this morning sold all my bonds.

I think the market is going to do well over the next couple of years, but I may wait a few days to reinvest this money.

Before I forget. I still own 10,000 shares of Fonar and I am losing $2000 on those shares.

I talked to a Radiologist this weekend who is married to my cousin and he said he thought the "Stand Up MIR" had some merit and he was familiar with the company. He also said GE pretty much has a monopoly on the MRI business.













(Message edited by ben on September 29, 2003)