Trading and Killing time...

Well, this week happened to be our least busiest week in the last while.   Doesn't it sound ironic when this week had every big name co.  releasing their earning and Dow broke 12k?   To us, it's just business as usual.    We typically don't get very active during the first couple weeks of earning season as most of the reports are dominated by household names.    But of course, if you happen to run a mutual fund with billions of dollars, this is the crunch time.   For us, we just sit back and look at all this in amusement.    Then again, if you happen to be a multi billion dollar fund manager and are reading our blog, we'd say you definitely need help. lol...Although, we love seeing the million dollar Hedgies coming by;)

For us, we trade because this is the only thing we know how and love.  But in order to have an edge, we have to trade in our own games.    Small caps have been our success and it's been this way for quite sometimes.    Just because the spotlight is on the big caps and indices at this moment, it doesn't mean that small caps have been buried deep in the mud.    All it really takes is a couple of awesome small cap runner that have spectacular earning report and perhaps two to three weeks of hard work, you'd be all set for the rest of the year.    The reason why we don't touch options or other sophisticated strategy here is that we are trying to keep trading to its simplest form, demand and supply.    We think we have a very good understanding of the psychology behind trading of small caps.   There's simply no hiding of emotions when it comes to small caps.     Believe it or not, when it comes to small caps, you can experience surprise, excitement, enjoyment, greediness, top of the world feeling, fear, denial, numb, anger.. all kinds of emotional feeling  within a span of just two weeks.    We love to trade around that kind of emotional environment so we can't wait till the majority of the small caps to start reporting in the coming weeks. (TRT was just early in being late).

Meantime, in order to keep ourself busy other than watching this ridiculous CNBC stuff, here's some stocks of interest.....

DIVX, we think this one is catching its GOOG connection one way or the other.     The chart looks like it's setting up for another possible run up.   We added some and will look for direction next week to trade accordingly.

MR, could this b/o be it?   The volume suggests it's the real deal but how many times we've been faked out by it before? lol    Of course, this one is gonna get our attention in the coming week.

SYNA, this one came to our attention last night when it guided up nicely.   Trading action is suggesting higher price to come.

DGIT, this one defiinely doesn't have the lust it had when we first initially found it, but it's nonetheless worth keeping your eyes on.

ACOR ITMN ILMN, when in doubt, go medical.   These three are also high on our trading list as they are definitely more immune to the sensitive side of the economic data.

some new stocks of interest this week included APH, ALB, RBN and most of the airline stocks....

cheers,

Earning hits and misses...

For those that have followed us for the last few years, we have written numerous times about how we just do not like the probability of holding through earning.    If this is year 1999, we'd probably be buying calls left and right in front of the earning.   This is 2006 and we think that trading environment has changed a lot since the hay days.    The conclusion is that it is almost rare these days that a stock gaps up after an earning report but frequently the stock gaps down on any slight disappointment out of a report.     Of course, we are using DIVX as an example to illustrate our point as there seems to be some confusion over the earning reaction tonight.

On Friday morning, we noted that DIVX was acting really well a day ahead of its earning report and we thought it could pull a RVBD.  What we meant by that was the fact RVBD rallied over two points right before its earning report.   We thought DIVX could pull a similar move given its connection with google.    Then the infamous Goldman call hits and basically the whole market got dragged down and particularly the tech sector.   So the "rally ahead of earning" play never materialized for us.   Fortunately the stock did perk up late today to provide us still a nice exit point ahead of the earning.     So what happened to the stock in AH?   We think it's obvious that the stock's earning did not meet expectation.    We will not get into the debate of what should be the expected growth number or how much this stock should be worth... etc.   The fact that the stock is down quite bit in AH gives us a pretty good reason to stay away, and to move on.   If this stock comes back and try to attack the old high down the road, we'd be there.   For now, there's plenty of other action that is keeping us busy.

UCTT, so we found out who that seller of the 1.8 million block is and stock rallied.   We are encouraged by its action and think it's just a matter of time before it goes much higher.

RIMM, ah ha, the GS call should not and is not affecting this blackberry monster.   This one is approaching to be a good winner here.

The "A" Team,  APLX, AMIE, ALB, AXR all exhibiting unusual strength today and in fact three of the four logged new high today.

GROW/IAAC, love it or hate it, these are two good stocks to trade and bias is on the long side.

We are almost done with October and we are very much looking forward to the the month of November.    There's historically some strong action in this month and we hope it's no different this time around.   Having said that, we are still going to be looking for the best of the best kind of earning setup and won't get carried away chasing any and every gap ups.

cheers,

Update on Monday, October 30, 2006 at 09:49PM by Demi/ YourPersonalTrader

If you're wondering about the origin of The A-Team, ALB was mentioned in MC as something we'd rather have than AAPL the day after these reported. AMIE,APLX premarket in the extended trading section last week. AXR is one most know from IBD that was a recent high flyer. There are other names we have left up so you can build a list of stocks to watch/trade coming off quality earnings this Q. It pays on days like today.