July 2010
1 post
Get SEC Filings Fast for Free!
I thought I haven’t been able to tweet much these days and owe my loyal followers something to compensate for that :). Some of you might already know this but I doubt it’s very common. So here we go.
This post is here to prevent you from paying for something you can already get for free. Faster and better than any paid service.
If you’re a trader, you ideally already know how...
June 2010
1 post
My Case Against Pure Technical Trading
How does this chart look to you?
What a strong uptrend, increasing volume, breakout above 2.00 resistance, MA cross… Right?
Right. Only one problem. Just a week later, this stock (doesn’t matter what it is) was trading at half of what you see in this chart. And it was no surprise.
Now, I myself use charts all the time. I believe in technical analysis. But what I hate seeing is,...
April 2010
1 post
Twitter Etiquette for Traders
My thoughts about how a stock tweeter can be a useful resource to others:
1) If you tweet an entry, tweet an exit. It’s acceptable if you tweeted a stop and mention it’s a hard stop. We’ll automatically assume you’re out.
2) If you tweet an exit, make sure you tweeted the entry before you do the victory dance. Just stay quiet otherwise.
3) If your entries are...
March 2010
1 post
Doing a Free Webinar: Shorting The Fluff
This will be an introduction to shorting stocks that run big even though they don’t really “deserve” it. If you’ve been following me you know that it is my main and most successful strategy.
I will go over what to (and what not to) short, when to short and some common pitfalls. This is a technique that’s a little out of ordinary, so I hope that it will be a nice...
February 2010
4 posts
When Insider Trading Matters
Insider trading can be a significant tool at your disposal in terms of indicating a stock’s future direction. However, insider trading data is full of noise and most of it actually doesn’t mean anything, contrary to what many believe. To really have an edge over others, you need to act like a detective looking for clues among all the noise. It’s a fun game.
In case you...
Goodbye Twitter (Well, sort of)
In the past 5 months or so, I’ve been sharing almost all my moves realtime with Twitter stock community. It’s been great; the thing you feel when someone follows your move, makes money and thanks you is amazing.
I’m writing this just to let my followers know I won’t be doing that anymore. Well, I’m not really going anywhere, I’ll still be around and will share...
Trading The Bio CEO Conference
One pitfall most people don’t realize when trading biotechs is an expectation that the stock will pop going into events like conferences etc. While it happens from time to time when company presents unexpected data, most of the time these are non-events. In order to spike a stock, there needs to be unexpected news. However, these conferences are expected by everyone and most of the time...
Dirty games CNLG plays
Update #2: Since the time I wrote this post, I have recouped most of my losses mentioned below by shorting CNLG again from 4.38 to 2.85.
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First let me say this: Stock market is a scam. I’ll repeat, the stock market is a scam. Accept it and find a way to make money out of it. There is no room for whining. I’m not going to whine.
I lost about 70% of my position (Update:...
January 2010
4 posts
Cody Trades
If you are thinking of following me on Twitter, or just started following, please go to http://bit.ly/2VfD0C to know what to expect from my trading style mostly.
You can also ask me anything you want at http://formspring.me/codytrades (No need to signup, but if you signup you’ll know when I answer your question).
I recently had to stop tweeting my realtime plays. Please...
Speculative Trading in the New Decade
While the fundamental rules of the trade are the same since Jesse Livermore, trading dynamics are going through a huge transition with wide use of internet, social networks and computerized trading. That means, as a good trader, you need to adapt. Here is a few things we can do to make use of technology and improve our trading.
Beware of stock promotion: There always was stock promotion. Used to...
Shorting Huge Spikes Part Two: The Dead Cat Bounce
I’ll share a neat little strategy I use all the time to short big runners. It goes like this:
- A stock gets news and momentum, runs parabolic for couple of days. 100%+ for us to have enough downside.
- Then it fades and falls big one day. (I’m most likely short that day :) )
- In a little while, it starts running big again. But this time on little to no news. It’s usually a...
I like bad trades
Really, I do.
Yes, it sucks to lose money but every time I make mistakes I feel like I’m learning something new, and man, I do love learning.
I’ll share the details of a terrible trade I made and what went wrong, maybe there’s something in it that can help you as well. It’s my biggest loss since August.
Briefly, ticker is EONC. What they do is unrelated. They’ve...
December 2009
2 posts
Know thyself
Trading is a mind game, quite often it’s a psychological battle going on in your own head. So, one of the most crucial qualities a good trader must have is to know his strengths&weaknesses. Then he should do two more things: Try to improve of course, and try to find a trading style that fits these strengths and weaknesses.
I’m proud to say that I am very good at identifying these...
Discount online broker comparison
If you’re a very active trader like me, you too probably check your commissions column in your P&L once in a while and open up a bottle of scotch to forget it all. But of course, cost of commissions is only one side of the equation. Any other problem with your broker can cost you much more than commissions. That’s why a good short term trader should make sure he’s working...
November 2009
2 posts
Playing huge spikes from the short side
I’d like to talk a little bit about this in the light of NLST, DRAM, SEED and GRO spikes that we’ve seen recently.
First, if you catch a spike early on and get in, great. That’s the best play. I personally almost never chase a spike. I may get in at a pullback but even that is rare. If I missed the first few percent, I don’t risk getting in. Yes, it may go up 100% from...
How I Trade
I just wanted to talk briefly about my bread and butter trading technique, hoping that it might be beneficial to someone, especially new traders.
My main strategy is finding simple low risk entries in potentially overextended short term situations in market and exploit them by going against them. Note that I also do standard swing trades and even some long term trades rarely, but that’s not...