ParkTwain's Parlor

[ParkTwain]

"Do you subscribe to bar charts?"

No. All my research is based on publicly available free information.

[RL]

Park,Your my kinda guy. At one time I did subscribe to different [stock grues?] without much success. The only one that made me some money was The Speer report. I would listen to the people on this forum before ever using any paid for sights. I would take Spikes advice plus all the other posters and now we have Dave,robbb, and Jim I would name more but I might miss someone how can you get more Info than we get here. I would just like someone to tell me when and what to buy and when to sell so that way I could enjoy a couple more beers and not worry about throwing my dart.

[Websman]

Park,Your my kinda guy. At one time I did subscribe to different [stock grues?] without much success. The only one that made me some money was The Speer report. I would listen to the people on this forum before ever using any paid for sights. I would take Spikes advice plus all the other posters and now we have Dave,robbb, and Jim I would name more but I might miss someone how can you get more Info than we get here. I would just like someone to tell me when and what to buy and when to sell so that way I could enjoy a couple more beers and not worry about throwing my dart.

RL, if I may, I would like to recommend Poormans service to you. I've done very well with his picks and strategies. His model was up around 34% last year. I found VPHM and a few other big winners through him.

In my personal opinion, it's well worth the $25 per month.
Here's a link - www.poormans.com

[ParkTwain]

Years ago I subscribed for about 12 months to (now deceased) Al Frank's "Prudent Speculator" newsletter, which I can recommend as basically sound. They publish a recommended portfolio and also run a fund (maybe more than one) that reflects the newsletter's published picks.

http://www.prudentspeculator.com/

[billyjoe]

Ray,
Poormans has about the best reputation I've seen in the business.

billyjoe

[ParkTwain]

I wonder what Poorman's means by an "interesting chart." His samples don't define the term.

[Websman]

I wonder what Poorman's means by an "interesting chart." His samples don't define the term.

I'm not sure, but I really like his level headed approach to investing.

[ParkTwain]

My investing book of the week: "The Battle for Investment Survival" (3rd ed., 1957) by G. M. Loeb, which I purchased in hardcover for $1.00 at my local library. Was originally published in 1935. Lots of nuggets in this book. He doesn't believe in diversification for an individual's account. He is also of a contrarian mind. For example:

"Except in cases of panic or near panic prices, the fact that a stock is widely held by investment trusts is not a good reason for buying, as such stocks are generally of the high-grade kind difficult to buy cheap. Since the aim is rather to buy an issue which is unpopular, the hope is, on the contrary, that while the investment companies do not hold much or any now, they will later, at a higher price, become interested and add it to their portfolios. The distinction of being the stock most frequently listed in published institutional holdings simply means not only that the price is probably high rather than low but also that there is a large number of potential sellers should the situation take a turn for the worse."

This week I ordered my copy of Stock Trader's Almanac for 2006.

[IIC]

Bruce uses a Modified CANSLIM approach...it is well suited to Intermediate Term Investors who do not want to take or don't have the time to constantly watch everything...And still make a decent ROI which should consistently beat the markets.

I don't subscribe...but I am very familiar with his methods...I'd rate his site a very good value...Plus he is a very nice guy...Doug

[ParkTwain]

Building on my posted research from a couple of day ago ...

Going into tomorrow, best bets among those stocks researched: AGYS, WIRE, QCOM. Leaning toward QCOM right now (night before) due to recently rising daily volumes and strengthening momentum indicators, unlike the other two. Hoping it acts like BRCM did so far this week.

Other alerts set, to prepare for new positions:

- Alerts high (trigger on new ATH breakout): CLZR, PDFS, RMIX, GNTX, SNA, SPSS, LMT, NOC

- Alerts low (trigger on bounce down to prev ATH, after recent fade from recent new ATH breakout): AOS, HLF, SIRF, APH


Next best runnersup: ACTG, THOR, EYE, BDX, DAKT, RHAT, THQI

[ParkTwain]

After finding links to archived columns by Gary B. Smith (until recently a columnist at TheStreet.com), I was surprised to read that he is a breakouts-only trader who based much of his practice on ideas similar to mine. (Trading breakouts means that you believe in market "inertia" that lasts more than a few minutes or couple of days.) He recently resigned his gig at TheStreet.com; don't know what his next step is. I had never subscribed to TheStreet.com.

Because he will trade long or short and doesn't restrict himself to all-time highs (my preference) or lows, he must use some technique for finding basing behavior (30 to 60 days long, usually) that he considers a setup to a breakout, either upward or downward. (Would he be scanning for a near-term volatility figure, or perhaps Bollinger Band width, that is less than some threshold? I haven't found the answer yet.) He also prefers to take a 10% profit per position and to limit the time-in-market for each trade. He sees his trading bankroll as "inventory" that he wants to turn over as quickly as possible. As Van K. Tharp teaches ("Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom"), your trading profits are a function of your win/loss rate, your profit/loss margin, and your number of trading opportunities per time period.

These columns date from 1998 and later, so today he may trade using newer criteria.

"How to Read GBS: A Primer" dated May 3, 1999 (TheStreet.com)

http://www.thestreet.com/comment/techtake/742048.html

I found there to be a lot of good, practical stuff in these columns. They describe an approach to trading that isn't all that TA-intensive to work with and therefore tends toward the "low maintenance" end of the trading styles spectrum.

[billyjoe]

Park,
I was a member of "the street" I think when it was free. Also paid for a year or so. Cramer soured me on them . Always thought there were some good guys over there, but didn't hang around long enough to figure out who. I'm sure Cramer has some valuable info. , but sorting it out from the garbage proved impossible for me.

billyjoe

[ParkTwain]

Bought 300 sh QCOM this morning. Looking for significant near-term upside.

Other open positions: OXPS, DDD.

Trading account 2006 YTD: +10.4%

[ParkTwain]

QCOM - nice intraday ascending triangle setting up ...

[ParkTwain]

If you're an oil and gas sector believer, you could do a lot worse than GSF these days. ATH being made recently.