Fun while it lasted

jasenj1 — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 11:44:46 GMT

A few months ago my CAPS score was approaching 900, I was touching the 95th percentile, and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. Today I dropped below 80%, my score is nearing 200 - and all of that is accounted for by my AAPL pick.

The Market is a fickle mistress. One stray blog posting can wipe 50% off the value of a stock (see ABAT). The Eurozone debt crisis can put entire regions into a downspin. Every...

Got my 200 badge - but at such a cost!

jasenj1 — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 11:20:38 GMT

AAPL finally broke 200 for me. Yay!

But, Oh!, my CAPS score has fallen, fallen, fallen in recent months. I blame it mostly on the beating Chinese stocks have taken recently. I have three or four Chinese stocks with over -100 points. Yeow! When I picked them, I was betting on China's economic rise. I did not foresee the huge amount of fraud reports and short sell pressure.

Ju...

A gain is a gain, I guess.

jasenj1 — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 20:18:01 GMT

It's very disheartening to look at a CAPS pick and see it is up over 10% (Yee ha!) and then look over and see that it still has a more than -50 score (boo hoo).

Education with ABAT - Part 2

jasenj1 — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:54:37 GMT

Today ABAT responded to the Seeking Alpha article that caused their stock price to fall 40% in one day. Shortly after the rebuttal was posted, their stock jumped from $2.00 to $2.50. A nice 20% one day pop. Will they recover back to the $3.75 level they were at before the SA article was posted? There may still be easy money to be made here.

Education with ABAT

jasenj1 — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 10:28:59 GMT

A couple of days ago shares of ABAT dropped 40% based on a posting on Seeking Alpha. (That drop cost me 40 CAPS points.) I thought that was a pretty flimsy reason for such a dramatic drop, so I picked up a few shares at $2.03. I also started following the Yahoo message boards for the s...

What to do with CAPS losers?

jasenj1 — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 09:17:24 GMT

I have a number of picks in my CAPS portfolio that have not turned out very well. There are a couple -100, and several in the -50 to -100 range. Should I end these picks or just let them ride? -100 moving up to -80 is net 20 points. And if they pay a dividend, there's hope for a little bump if they follow the market on price. If I close them, they definitely count against my percentage, with them hanging around, there's a

Twitter traffic can predict the Stock Market

jasenj1 — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:14:32 GMT

"The question that Bollen and co ask is whether any of these states correlates with stock market prices. After all, they say, it is not entirely beyond credence that the rise and fall of stock market prices is influenced by the public mood.
So these guys took 9.7 million tweets posted by 2.7 million tweeters between March and December 2008 and looked for correlations between the GPOMS indices and whether ...

Playing the CAPS game.

jasenj1 — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:40:46 GMT

Playing CAPS is about doing better than everyone else. It doesn't do much good to pick something like Proctor & Gamble (PG) because over 6000 other people have also picked it. When P&G goes up, all 6000+ people have their score go up. That doesn't help you get ahead. On the other hand, something like the John Hancock Tax-Advantage Dvd, Inc.m Fd.(HTD) has less than 50 players and pays a hefty dividend, so the starting price is continually going down regardless of wh...

Made it to 95!

jasenj1 — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:48:49 GMT

Yay for me. I finally got a rating of 95 today. I can't claim any amazing insight or strategy. If you look at my current page you'll see a whole bunch of VERY negative picks from back before the crash (GU, EXM). And if you look at my list of closed picks you'll see some big missed potential scores (COLM, TUP). I mostly screen for low P/E, low debt, & decent growth. I've started following some of the top Fools, but so far I've had mixed success on those picks.
The market has been flat for a little while. I like this. The DJIA, S&P 500, NASDAQ, etc. are averages. When averages stay the same, that means some things are up and some things are down - about equally. That means those who do their homework & research can find companies that are undervalued, performing well, etc. that indicate their values should/will go up. And at the same time get out of companies that are overvalued - or short them if you're that kind of investor....

A Good Day - Losers starting to recover

jasenj1 — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:28:19 GMT

The market was flat today, but my score jumped by ~60 points and my rating jumped to over 90. Hooray! I've been in the 80s for a couple months, touching 90 a couple times. There must be a very close grouping of players in this range. Somewhere there must be statistics showing the point spreads between the various score ranges.
Most of my jump came from two stocks I've been following for over a year, TSL and GLNG. They fell very far when the market cra...

Taking some points.

jasenj1 — Mon, 11 May 2009 11:46:41 GMT

Market down a bit today. I'm closing out several stocks that I've made points on, but are down today. I'll keep and eye on them and see if/when they warrant re-adding.

Entering another phase of my trading life.

jasenj1 — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:04:40 GMT

I've owned and followed Apple for a long time. I bought shares when they were down around $20-30 and have sold off chunks of my holding to cover house down payments. They've been a good stock to me. Also, I love their products and am an avowed "Machead". I've owned at least one of their computers since 1984.
However, they are a notoriously volatile stock. $180 this week, $150 the next, back up to $190. Boing, boing, boing.<...

It's Opposite Day!

jasenj1 — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:10:52 GMT

Everything that was up is down!
Silly stock market.

Today was a very good day.

jasenj1 — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:49:37 GMT

Wow. My CAPS rating bumped up to 94 today. My score went up 125. 125!
Am I really that smart? Or am I just lucky? I really don't do anything special, just run a screen now and then for companies with "good" growth(>15%), low P/Es (<15), some dividends, charts that look smooth, and in sectors that I like - I'm a computer nerd/engineer and like tech companies and companies that make stuff - not interested in ...

Dear Diary

jasenj1 — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:03:51 GMT

Closed out a few winners that took a dip today in an effort to "lock in" some points - and improve my percentage. Will likely add them back in if they move up again.
My score (and rating) have done quite well the past couple weeks. From below zero up to 200+. I even touched all-star status on Thursday.
Glad to see Garmin finally turning around.
Added a few mor...

What to do about NTE?

jasenj1 — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:49:45 GMT

Nam Tai Electronics posted their Q1 results today and things do not look good to my eye. Sales fell 23% YoY, influenced primarily by a 51% fall in their telecom business. You can read the gory details in any of the summaries available on the Web. Their guidance isn't very upbeat, either, with mumblings about restructuring costs, labor regulations in China, Bird Flu, and other gloomy things. Yet they still pay out a $0.22 dividend, which is good money - a...

How to play CAPS?

jasenj1 — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 09:41:07 GMT

I haven't been playing very long, and my score has been pretty volatile - I peaked in the 80s last week, and now I'm down in the 20s. I haven't figured out yet how to "lock in" any of my points. At first, I was ending any pick that fell below -10 points. But after reading the rules, I see that ended picks are used to calculate your score, too. So that just locks in a loss and hurts my percentage.
On the other hand, I ...

Boom! There's my miracle.

jasenj1 — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:45:41 GMT

Crox just became my miracle maker for the Water Cooler contest. Their 40% dive more than offsets GE's 12% drop. I went from one-hundred and somethingth to 23rd in a snap.

So Much for the Water Cooler Contest

jasenj1 — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:43:37 GMT

I entered the Water Cooler contest. For a newbie, I wasn't doing too bad, in the top 50%. But then GE missed their numbers and their stock plummeted. Ugh. Bye-bye top 50%, hello bottom 50%. There's plenty of time left in the contest, and one of my other picks might rocket up the other way, but for now GE has anchored me to the bottom.

jasenj1's Blog

Fun while it lasted

Got my 200 badge - but at such a cost!

A gain is a gain, I guess.

Education with ABAT - Part 2

Education with ABAT

What to do with CAPS losers?

Twitter traffic can predict the Stock Market

Playing the CAPS game.

Made it to 95!

A Good Day - Losers starting to recover

Taking some points.

Entering another phase of my trading life.

It's Opposite Day!

Today was a very good day.

Dear Diary

What to do about NTE?

How to play CAPS?

Boom! There's my miracle.

So Much for the Water Cooler Contest