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Pastimes : Working a day job and making a profit with low capital -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Fred Davis who wrote (23)	4/10/1999 1:30:00 AM
From: MSB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32

Nope, sorry, no proven system. Problem is to do what you suggest with regard to trading patterns of the stocks would require an ample amount of knowledge and time to judge the best entry points. I try to look for recent lows out of say a month or so on the companies that I keep an eye on. These wouldn't be all time lows, but lows lower than the norm over the course of a month of trading. To try and make this determination, I keep a daily log of the close, range, and volume. As an example, I follow BOBJ. About three days ago, it hit a low of just above 17 after having traded in the 30's a month ago. The stock slowly fell downward without any apparent reason other than perhaps the fact that it just wasn't going up. Maybe it was a top, maybe another reason entirely, but it wasn't anything I could find in the news releases. The stock bottomed briefly at around 23 or so, and then ran back up to around 30. Fell back again to an even lower point. A ridiculus point, IMO, since the analysis or earnings outlook hadn't changed. The stock has been up the past two days. I would have probably sold today, but having no position in the stock, that would have been difficult.<g> Unfortunately, I'm tied to two other stocks at the moment which have yet to hit my exit price. Once they do, I cash out, and wait for the next ridiculus low and start the process all over again. I try to keep tabs on about 20 stocks, mostly techs. And after logging the criteria on a daily basis, this gives me a base from which to seek out my next investment opportunity. Of course, I do have my weaknesses, too. I can also fall in love with a stock and make some idiotic buys based on enthusiasm and past experience. I recently ate a healthy loss because I refused to believe what was so obvious, that management was screwing up. Hopefully a short term glitch. Not the best by any stretch, but certainly not the worst. Experience is a great teacher provided the student is willing to listen. I just keep trying to prove the master wrong.<gg> Just for the heck of it, pick about 5 or 6 stocks and keep a log on them for say about two months. Pick stocks with differing market caps. It would only require 3 sheets of paper and probably no more than 15 minutes at the end of the day. Just watch them without investing. I think you'll get a general idea about what I'm talking about. Mike

To: Fred Davis who wrote (23)	4/15/1999 6:23:00 PM
From: trendy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32

Hi Fred and All : New to the thread - I have a few comments : BBs are REALLY tough to make consistent money on unless you can babysit them. It may be more productive to look at smaller stocks that have a decent price base, (little downside) have good prospects and have a bit of an uptrend. Learn to read charts, and learn to understand price resistance points. I took a quick look at HMG Worldwide (HMGC) over at clearstation.com and while it has a nice uptrend and seems to have good volume, you can see that the uptrend is softening quite a bit as it approaches the $5.00 mark. If the company is solid, it will often bounce a few times and finally break the price barrier, as ISLE did today : clearstation.com --- Others will become rangebound and go sideways for an extended period of time. People may get bored with the lack of movement, and begin selling, so they'll go down. (CYRK) More on BB stocks : There are some that are clearly stong enough and have enough upside potential that they cannot be ignored. One that comes to mind is Starnet (SNMM). I've followed this one for months and fortunately or unfortunately have finally gotten in after it has run nicely several times. Given the fact that a full Nasdaq listing is likely and the wide following this stock has, I've placed a large portion of my holdings in this one and fully expect the downside to be no greater than $9 at this point, while the upside is considerable. Find stocks like this! Another that comes to mind is ZSUN, tho' a little pricey right now. The lower-priced BBs are commonly stocks that will produce only frustration, if you are not able to watch and trade them properly. Find stocks that have had runs in the past, wait for a solid price base to form and be patient with them. TRAC, SKYM and many others. SELL them when they reach your price target. As others have mentioned, you MUST pay attention to commissions as a portion of the cost of your trade. Something I find helpful and use often is the "Stock Spread Calculator", available for free from : wheatworks.com Most of the time, I'll do a quick calc before entering a trade since many of my trades are short-term, and it's possible that the likely upside is not adequate to make much beyond break-even. Finally, one tool that I've found very useful is Jeff Cooper's book : "The Five Day Momentum Method" -- If you read the text literally, you only buy into stocks that have share prices of $50 or greater, I've found the method to be very useful on select smaller stocks; these are usually stocks in the "discovery phase". People have begun buying into these stocks, and they are beginning to take small runups. Watching this type of stock closely has enabled me to find TRAC at less than $6, NTPA at less than $8 and TFSM at less than $30. These are stocks that had significant volatility at lower levels and finally broke out BIG. I hope this information will be useful to you; please feel free to ask questions if you have them. Best, Pana