Thursday, April 27, 2006

Introducing Sally; Insider Buying Alerts

I first mentioned Insider Buying in my Profile to the right of these Blogs, written back in November, 2004. Since then I have mentioned several real time trades based on insider buying and have recommended a number of commercial services that transmit insider buying alerts for a fee. I don't use any of them, relying instead on a software program developed by one of my trading partners that alerts us of newly posted insider buys from the SEC site. These alerts appear on our desktops within seconds of the SEC postings. We've named this program: Sally.

This past weekend we added a new feature to Sally. She now, in addition to the local alerts, can send out emails in real time whenever an I-buy that meets our filtering criteria is posted at the SEC site. Sally can send those alerts to any number of e-mail addresses without much additional effort on our part.

So here is the deal: If you are interested in being on an email list for these alerts, simply send me a private email at SallyInsider@fastmail.fm with "Subscribe" in the Subject line. It's totally free, i.e. I'm not interested in charging a fee or anything like a fee for this. In return, there is no advice or handholding beyond civil discussions about insider-buying in general and you use these Alerts at your own peril. You can use the information, or not use it, as you please. It's information, not stock recommendations, so act accordingly. Expect anywhere from 5 to 25 insider email alerts a day and if you ever want them to stop coming, send an "Unsubscribe" email to that same email address.

Why mess with it? Why offer these emails for free when some services charge as much as $300 a month for similar information? Every once in awhile it feels good to help someone make money in the stock market. A tool like this in the right hands can do just that, used for short-term trading or longer-term investing. And I assure you that offering these emails will not adversely effect my trading, and if it does, it terminates at will; my will, not yours.

If you care to try it for a few days and then withdraw from the mailing list, that's cool too. In other words, try it, you may like it and if you don't, no big deal. We hope to have this service up and running by Monday.

Again, if you are interested, send me a note, Subject, "Subscribe" at SallyInsider@fastmail.fm.

A

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

What's Up?

Glad you asked. Been busy setting something up that some of you may be interested in. I get Alerts throughout the day that suggest buying opportunities based on a diverse set of criteria. One of my trading partners and myself have been stewing over the sharing with my readers of one subset of these alerts. We're close to making it available. It will be free, for the asking, but we don't want any liability for anything anyone does with this information.

We thought it would be pretty easy to set up, which it is, but we also are taking time to make sure everything is self-explanatory so we, or I, don't get deluged with a bunch of questions and again, make sure that we appropriately disclaim against responsibility for what anyone does with this information. Saying it clearly and unequivilently seems to be the best path, simple and to the point.

So stand-by....you are about to be introduced to Sally.

A

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Leveraging the Bull, Part II

I posted Leveraging the Bull (Part I) last December as an introduction of sorts as to what this Blog was all about, though I didn't know it at the time. As AllAllan has evolved, it has taken on a life of its own, from daytrading to highly speculative penny stocks and most recently, to market timing.

My first market timing trade was yesterday near the open, buying the June 38 QQQQ calls at $4.50 ($450.00) each. Yesterday's market decline took those calls to below $4.00 before a small come-back near the close. My average cost, after adding more at $4.00, is now $4.25. Those calls just traded at $4.70, for a gain of $0.45 each, a return of 10.5%. The underlying index is at $42.24, about $0.55 above my average entry, or about 1.3% higher.

In other words, a 1.3% gain in the underlying index has translated into a 10.5% gain in the deep-in-the-money options.

I like index options for market timing rather then futures, because options have limited risk, i.e. you cannot lose more then the cost of the position. Futures carry virtually unlimited risk, i.e. "Limit Down" day, after day, after day.

My calls are now trading at $4.90 X $5.00, a 17.6% winner.

Spot quiz, tomorrow.

A

Monday, April 17, 2006

Cramer, Redux

Year-to-Date Return.....James Cramer's Action Alerts Portfolio......+3.80%
Year-to-Date Return.....NASDAQ Composite (COMP).....................+4.27%
Year-to-Date Return.....Russell 2000 Index (RUT)...................+11.80%


"Best of Breed", my ass.

A

A Time To Sell

Just kidding, folks. You've got have a sense of humor to deal with days like today. I still believe we are in a Buy window for a short term (couple of months) rally. Already took a partial position in QQQQ calls, will average into a full position as the week unfolds.

A

Saturday, April 15, 2006

A Time To Buy

In the history of my AllAllan blog, I have yet to venture into the space-time continuum known as market timing. Naturally there was good reason to stay away from that disaster-in-drag, mainly, I hadn't a clue. That has changed somewhat, with the discoveries set out in Paradigm and reported here.

If you will review the Paradigm Blog and the signals listed on that page. this will make a whole lot more sense. Those signals represent a monthly or intermediate analysis of cyclical forces. Note that every Spring there is a Buy Signal, as there is a Sell Signal every Summer, a Buy Signal every Fall and another Sell Signal every Winter.

When I ran the analysis in the QQQQ, going back six years, these signals have been 86% accurate, with the winners swamping the losers, 16% for the average winner versus 1.7% for the average loser.

With that as an introduction and hoping that this motivates some of you to look a little deeper into the work of Robert Taylor
the markets are now in what we can call the Spring Buy Window. I would also add that the price action and sentiment of the markets and its participants, sucks. Ask yourself, when does that happen, at highs or at lows?

The third leg of this timing analysis is taxes. I sold stock this past month to pay my taxes, and if I was doing it, so were a lot of others. The other side of that coin is that at the same time people are selling to pay taxes, they are also funding retirement accounts to reduce the sting of those taxes. So there is a flow of funds going into the equity markets, maybe a massive flow, which may account in part for the Spring rallies we see in those Paradigm Signals.

For the first (and maybe the last) time ever, AllAllan is issuing a Buy signal. There is no shortage of stocks that we have talked about in the past four months that are primed to participate in any ensuing market rally. Personally, in addition to buying some more of our stocks, I will be buying some deep-in-the-money index calls, probably the SPY and QQQQ's with at least three months before expiration.

One more comment about these signals: Of the four seasonal signals, the Spring Buy is the weakest, averaging about 6% versus an overall average of 16% basis the QQQQ signals. Still, knowing that there is an 86% expectation that the markets will be about 6% higher in the next few months is worth something........isn't it?

A

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

NVAX

Gary C Evans, a Director of Novavax, made an open market purchase of 25,000 shares yesterday. This Director bought a boatload of shares last fall just before and while the stock ran from $1.50's to over $8.00. He has not sold a single share and is now buying again. What does he know?

A

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Paradigm

Paradigm is a novel written by Robert Taylor, published by Savas Beatie in 2006. It is the story of two brothers who discover the holy grail of stock market timing and then are chased across Europe and the United States by powerful dark forces who already had discovered the secret and are not too happy about sharing it. It's 600+ pages were a quick and entertaining read and I recommend it to those of you who enjoy reading and in particular, enjoy reading about anything related to the stock market.

Here's the catch: It's not entirely a work of fiction. The storyline is make believe, but the holy grail, according to Taylor, is real. Wait. It gets better. It's for sale: http://taylortrends.com

I wrote the author and asked for some back data so I could check it out for myself. I received six years of charts with the author's methodology superimposed upon a chart of the S&P 500. I then subscribed to the timing service and checked all the previous timing signals, as far back is the web site went, just to make sure that the dates were authentic.

Does it work? Here are my hypothetical results, you can decide for yourself. All dates are based on the monthly mid-points, i.e. if a high or low was set for June, I chose June 15th for the date of my hypothetical trade. I also used the SPY (rounded to nearest whole number) for prices, although the timing would work for any general market tradable.

12/15/00.....SELL 132
03/15/01.....BUY 118
06/15/01.....SELL 121
09/15/01.....BUY 101
12/15/01.....SELL 113
04/15/02.....BUY 112
05/15/02.....SELL 110
09/15/02.....BUY 89
01/15/03.....SELL 94
03/15/03.....BUY 83
06/15/03.....SELL 100
08/15/03.....BUY 99
01/15/04.....SELL 113
05/15/04.....BUY 109
06/15/04.....SELL 114
08/15/04.....BUY 107
01/15/05.....SELL 122
04/15/05.....BUY 116
06/15/05.....SELL 121
10/15/05.....BUY 119
01/15/06.....SELL 128

Those are some impressive signals. The average gain per trade signal is 7.5% basis the SPY. But when applied to the Double Beta Funds (2X the market gains) of Pro Funds, the average trade signal jumped to 11.87%. When applied to deep-in-the-money SPY options, the average trade signal was close to 100% for three-month options.

There is reason to be skeptical of any methodology that claims to be able to time the market. That reason is that so many of us have been trying for so long to time the market without success, it is easy to conclude that it just can't be done and that these posted trade signals are too good to be true.

Unless, of course, they're not and this is indeed, the key to the vault.

A

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Apollo "Basket"

AGT = Apollo Gold...........$0.80
AOOR = Apollo Resources.....$0.69
APLL = Apolo Gold & Energy..$0.13

Why not?

A

Bird Flu - update

Oouch, after just getting off the mat from being sucker punched on DSCO, today a brokerage downgrade is taking NVAX down 10%.

While we await bird flu's spread across North America's avaian population, day to day sh-t happens. Fluctuations in our stocks are a lot less meaningful then meets the eye. The media frenzy that should ensue from the spread of the disease so close to home will eventually erase petty brokerage downgrades to their rightful place: l'oblivion.

A

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Letter from Sarah

Being gone for over a week, I picked up a pretty big stack of mail yesterday. Finally going through it all, found one from my daughter Sarah. I wanted to share a part of it here, since I dragged all of you into this on Monday and you deserve to know.

"....You give me so much Dad, & I really do appreciate it, I love you so much for it. And I won't date again until I meet someone who can give to me & support me as you do, b/c that's what I deserve. I can't wait to see you again, we will celebrate & do something special......"


A

AOOR - Apollo Resources

This is an extreme speculation, based on a story that first appeared on Briefing.com late Wednesday afternoon and is now circulating on the message boards.

The story (read: opportunity) surrounds a pricing anomaly that apparently exists between two publicly traded companies. AOOR with a market cap of $55M owns 70% of EBOF which has a market cap of $400M. If this is accurate, then AOOR, which closed today at $0.69, includes about $2.74 of EBOF stock. This pricing disparity creates the potential for AOOR to quickly move toward that $2.74 value.

Here is the Raging Bull post that quotes Briefing's analysis:

from briefing.com: 15:18
AOOR Apollo Resources – An undiscovered play on bulletin board runner Earth Bio. (0.56 +0.06)


We believe that it's gone almost unnoticed (and it was unnoticed by us until today) that AOOR, an integrated natural gas and biodiesel company with a market cap of about $54.4 mln, owns the majority of Earth Biofuels (EBOF) of BioWillie fame, a stock that has more than doubled since we first wrote it up on March 15, and now has a market cap of more than $400 mln, based on about 180 mln shares out. We found the information in AOOR's most recent 10k, and called the companies to confirm the information. Executives just got back to us and confirmed with us over the phone that AOOR owns the majority of EBOF. The ownership works out to be roughly 70% of EBOF. BriefingTrader Note: Assuming no value for AOOR itself, 70% ownership of EBOF at its current stock price would imply a current value for AOOR's stake of around $280 mln, or more than 5x AOOR's current cap.


I established a core position Wednesday just before the close but before I could check out the story for myself. If everything holds together AOOR may run out of the gate Thursday morning at the Open. How far it will run and whether it will allow for a good entry is uncertain.

But you can bet (read: bet) that I will be playing in the mud in the morning.


A

WAVX

Somethings moving this stock. At 73 cents, Buy now ask questions later.

A

Back

Finally made it out of O'Hare....now I can add Chicago as one of the places I've lived.

First of all, thanks to all for your outpouring of support. Getting personal had it's own risk:reward profile, and I got a 10-bagger from you folks.

Second, let's go ahead and make some money. The market should be close to a summer rally mode, maybe one wipe out first, or maybe just straight up, it shouldn't matter either way.

Finally, bad news out this morning for DSCO, based on everything we know, we aren't selling a single share, but aren't buying more until we review the conference call.

A

Monday, April 03, 2006

Not Dark Yet

It is 3:00am Chicago time. About two hours ago my flight arrived from Charleston, seven hours late, including an unscheduled 2 hour lay over in South Bend, Indiana, all because of a thunderstorm. Needless to say mine and 100's of other connections were missed and 1000's of travelers have been grabbing every hotel room in sight. Because every other plane coming into O'Hare was similarly delayed tonight, there is not a hotel romm wihtin 15 miles. The rooms that are available are cab ride away. Because of the demand, the wait for a cab at O'Hare is 3 hours.

So I am camped out on a hard plastic chair with about 40 other lost souls tonight. My new flight out is in 14 hours, allowing me plenty of contemplating how it is that I have come to this state of utter dispair. Oh yes, the Xanax, four and counting. There is more.

This week I ended, legally ended, a 25 year marriage. I spent a week at the beach with my youngest daughter, 15, trying to explain it all. My oldest daughter is in a "tough love" boarding school where we are not allowed to talk or see her. Not for months, and for some girls, years. This was my first trip back after leaving home that I did not see my Sarah, my oldest, my first born child. I am now gone again, for however long it will be, two daughters, no father.....and an entire night on a hard plastic chair to think about it.

I wish that this horrid moment in my life was changed ever so slightly. That the reason all of this transpired was here so I could look into her eyes and know why mountains sometime move. My tragic hours would turn magical and we would somehow make a wonderful lifelong memory of it all. But that is not how it is. It is just me and these words.

How do dreams die? Can they be brought back to life? Or do we just wear ourselves and our dreams out just getting through each and every day? I am so very tired of the struggle, the lost footprints in the sand, once mine, then shared, now no ones. That goes for all of the above young beautiful women who are such a big part of me.

My Sarah wrote a "contemplation" at dinner that her one contact with me, her personal counselor, read to me last week over the phone. It went something like this:

"Dad, why did you lie to me. Why did you always promise so much and deliver so little? You let me down Dad, you said you would give me a chance to live with you before sending to this awful place. I believed you, but like so much else you promised, in the end, you let me down. I still love you Dad, but you weren't there for me."

Now imagine, my friends, you are sitting in this bleak corner of O'Hare in the middle of the night, alone with your thoughts. No one's hand in your hand and no warm body and soul to share this cold hanging space. You are going away again, to be even farther away from those two little souls that you once cradled to sleep every night.

Fade to music:

Shadows are falling and I've been here all day
It's too hot to sleep time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I've still got the scars that the sun didn't heal
There's not even room enough to be anywhere
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

Well my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain
She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
She put down in writing what was in her mind
I just don't see why I should even care
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

Well, I've been to London and I've been to gay Paree
I've followed the river and I got to the sea
I've been down on the bottom of a world full of lies
I ain't looking for nothing in anyone's eyes
Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

I was born here and I'll die here against my will
I know it looks like I'm moving, but I'm standing still
Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don't even hear a murmur of a prayer
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.

A