I had promised that I was going to start my own thread regarding stock investments and the markets. So many things have happened since last time I was here and I really do not feel like sharing my knowledge. But a promise is a promise and there have been few people that have emailed me and supported me.

This thread will deal with investing in the stock markets. I will not discuss individual stocks but discuss ETFs like SPY, DIA, IWM and QQQQ. The one good thing about trading ETFs compared to individual stocks is the the ETFs provide instant diversification among similar companies within the same sector.

I will post more as we go along, regarding entry-price, profit-target and stop-losses. I do not think that any ETF is good or bad. It is good only if I'm making money and bad if I'm losig money.

If you have not been in the market so far, please read this as an information piece only rather than my recommendations. There is risk involved and you should know how much risk to take on any position.

Any suggestations, comments and criticisms are welcome as long as it is market related. If this thread gets out of hand and we start discussing off-topics, I'll stop posting.

Have a happy new year!!!! May 2007 bring you and your family lots of joys and riches.

Timetraveller: DSTI looks good. ASTI is still oversold. If I were to buy it, I'll buy it with a close below 7.50. ASTI could easily go to 13-14.

Nice job. Have you been to Clearstation. Check out their Tag and Bag section. It has stocks filtered by several criterias. Good place to start.

In the previous post regarding ASTI, I meant to say stop below 7.50. The market is closed on Friday, usually this favors Bulls. 1440 has been the last 3 week resistance. Hopefully we'll be able to close above that.

Buy on any sell-offs as long as the S&P is above 1424.

SIGA is performing well here. I like this stock. Today it closed at $5.25. I think this stock could go up to $8-$9 in the near future.

If it closes below $4.80, I'll take the loss and look for some other opportunity.

Out of all the stocks that I had mentioned, SIGA and ESLR met the buy condition, where you buy it after the first half-hour if the stock trades above the high of the first half-hour.

QQQQ, DIA, SPY and IWM are all up too. The market is closed tomorrow. There are few important numbers coming out tomorrow but we should resume this uptrend on Monday.

I will update here if there is any new developement. I'm going to enjoy the 3 day weekend.

All right guys. I think this is it for me here in Sajha. When I first came to Sajha, my goal was to show people that there is money to be made in stock market if we can analyze and understand how the market functions. In the last 4 months, I think I have accompolished what I intended to do. I usually take the summer off and come back in August. I have posted what I look for to buy and sell. If you follow these rules, I believe that in the long run you'll make money. The way I trade/invest will NOT make you the richest person but will make you enough to not have to worry about money.

Later.

E ji,

kinds sad that you are leaving us for the summer.

I have learnt a lot off your postings.

I shall wait for ya till August.

Wondering if you still trade during summer, or NOT? And, if it is a yes, is it okay to seek some more insights!

Best~!

Rajeev

Emini, nice work on all your posts on this thread...and I gotta give it up to your research. Am still confused after all this silent spectator while, whether to classify you as a technical or a fundamental dude...However, you were pretty good with your analysis no matter how your research was done.
Academicians may say that technical analysis is pure Bull, but on the street, thats what we and our predecessor traders have always lived by...and they work just as same from predicitng weather patterns to rice production to the future equity, FX (or any financial instrument) prices...Anything that has some repeating pattern may work well with technical analysis.
Enjoy the summer off and will look forward to the next trading session series on sajha when you're back.

good job eminitrader.... im looking forward to more of your postings in future.

Samsara ji,

my uptake is that it is not a science, it is rather a "feel" cocktailed with experience and science.

Kasoo?

E ji has impressed me grandly. You go guy!

Best~!

-B

Bricolage, Samsara, Latoboy:

Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad that you guys are finding this thread useful. Usually I do not trade much during summer but I do keep an eye on the market. Unless something unusual happens, I usually stay on the sidelines. If i trade, it will be futures only, just because you get more bang for the buck. I will post here if I see something unusual.

Samsara: I don't know how to define my analysis. It is not fundamental in the sense that I do not analyze individual company's balance sheet. If i have to define it, it is more of a macro-trend analysis and I use technicals to filter the trades, but in order to initiate trade I use price-action. I have tested almost all the technical indicators that are commonly available and the results have been okay.

For example: Macro-trend analysis says that we are in an uptrend, so I look for oversold stocks, but in order to go long the price itself has to trade above the 1st half hour high. Last week I mentioned a list of stocks that were oversold, had we bought those all we would have lost money. The only stock that acted right i.e. price traded above the half-hour high was SIGA and it has been going up. It was up 7% today. GROW was another one that I had recommended few weeks ago.

Other thing that do is look for the times when prices diverge with general consensus. When things look really good and everyone is expecting the market to go up but price does not go up, I usually take the opposite side and vice versa.

I have come up with a set of rules that have worked in the past. For example, if X and Y happens Z would occur within certain time. After the time passes, if Z does not happen, I will take my loss and loo for another opportunity.

Anyway, the price target on SIGA is $7.25. If you are in it, stay tight, if you are already not in it DO NOT chase it.

Sky's the Limit. Never sell yourself short.

http://www.traderdaily.com/news/item/5585.html

Paul Tudor Jones is my hero. He made the most money when the market crashed in 87.

We will wait for your emini. Have fun.

I'm not leaving for 2 more weeks. I could not find any stocks that met the criteria. If I find something, I will post here.

Emini, you always gave an insight to the stocks but not your method of analyzing it (I was always curious about it). I hope that your versatility will make you a big time trader some day...Paul Tudor Jones, now thats a man I'd love to emulate too. But being on the FX side, Soros and his short GBP trade on Sept 6, 1992 will always be my source of inspiration ($1 billion+ gain on 1 trade).

E ji,

glad that you are still hanging around for couple of more weeks. Amen!

Like I said earlier, I am rather a keen student here in this thread; duly learning my ropes. I hope I would be able to input something as I get to learn in the future about market and predictions and bets on it, calculated ones, preferably.

Right now, I have some long term holdings. One of them is MRVC. I like the leadership. And I know Jews know how to make profits, no matter what!. No offense to them. Also, I see that Luminent is hanging around for spin off. That makes this a lucrative long-hold stock.

I also am holding onto NFLX. I know you might have differed opinions on this one, more so coz the landscape of movie viewing may change over time. Yet, I trust my guts on this. Numbers run well on this stock as second advantage.

ALU, JDSU, seem to be not working out for me. I worked for one and have frens in the latter. Still I will not sell them short. E ji would agree with it, right?

on newbie side, I have CLWR and ARUN. Both seem to be not doing well. But these were picked based on few IPOs that did fly well in the recent past. I am having these under microscope.

This morning I was more inclined towards Airlines industry( WSJ). I hold MEH and AAL for merger sake. Did swell a bit!

Anyways, I look forward to more inputs from guys who are trading on the market.

E ji, correct me on my portfolio, if you will please. As you can make out that I am more on the techie side of stuff. Blue chips for short-term returns have worked out well for me. EMC and DELL, ORCL and MSFT, always gets you few hundred quids if you know when to buy and sell them. Right!

Samsara Ji, Good luck on Fx trading. I know very little on it.


Best~!

-B

Today was pretty slow. Not much volatility, although some of the individual stocks moved well. The Fed minutes are going to be released tomorrow, that should provide a direction to this market.

Anything tech related should be good at this point. If the market moves higher, it iwill be the techs that will leas us there. AMD came out with bad news and the stock was up, that means if any company comes out with good news, it will be up huge.

ARBA, SSTI, SANM are good. If you do not like much volatility SMH, QQQQ, MSFT, INTC will do good too.

Know when to get out if things do not work.

Today, the Fed minutes were released and the Fed basically said that they are still concerned about the inflation. The market sold off on those commets but still managed to find support. I'm still bullish if we can consolidate here or move higher. If we cannot break 1450 in S&P soon, I'll look into shorting, or a close below 1420 will make me bearish. I guess the CPI numbers on Friday will be very closely watched.

Still holding SIGA. Took a beating the last two days, but nothing to worry about. It is near my entry price. It took a while to get past $5, so that should be a strong support. If that does not hold, I'll take my loss.

The easiest money that was to be made have been made. Now many of the break-outs are likely to fail. The best way to play is to buy oversold stocks with a tight stop. This way you don't lose much if you are wrong. If you consistently get stopped out, realize that the market dynamics has changed and stay in cash.

The market needs to come down to 1360 for me to buy and hold for a long run.

Just to let you guys know, I know this guy that manages his personal portfolio about $1MM. He seems pretty bearish. He thinks the top is near. I have watched him trade and have a lot of respect for him. I'm not sure what to think besides tightening my stops.
I'd rather wait for a confirmation from the market. I'd like to see a 1% true selling day before being truly bearish.

For those of you guys that have another full-time job but want to learn about the market. Try www.vectorvest.com. I have heard that their education material is pretty decent. You can try for 5 weeks for $10, after that it is about $60 per month.

E ji,

I agree on SIGA, and so this morn I did get into it...

Will chase and see what happens next. So far it is green.

Best~!

-B

Market sold off in the morning but the buyers came in. The thing that worries me is that the market high was around 1448. We need to go over 1450 soon. If the market cannot go above 1450 tomorrow, we might see the re-test of the low. If it goes above 1450, then we have 1 last resistance to break at 1462, then it should be pretty smooth sailing.

SIGA was up about 4% today. Pretty decent run. It should go up from here.

Bricolage: If you bought SIGA this morning, you probably got near the low of the day. I don't think that you were chasing the market. You bought on a pull-back and that is good. Just holding it here and hopefully, we'll see $7 soon.

I have few appointments today so I might not post new picks. If I get home early I might post some.

ESLR and SIGA are both acting right, so pretty happy about that.