Morphing from being a Sucker

During 2007/2008 we had some debt issues that needed to be taken care of and I needed to take some money out of my brokerage account to pay that debt.  I won’t go into detail about that debt, but it was a family issue.  Once the debt was paid for, I was left with about $5,000 in the account.  I tried a couple more trades that cost me some money and by the end of the fall of 2008 I was left with $4,545.70.  I needed a new strategy.

I don’t remember the Google search I typed in, but I ended up finding Timothy Skyes’ website.  I looked it over a bit and seeing it had to do with penny stocks, I figured it was another scam.  I looked around it and noticed that he had his trades posted.  Both the winners and the losers.  That peaked my interest.  Normally scammers never have losing trades.

I did some back checking on his dates and trades to see if what he posted could be verified (I didn’t know about Covester at the time) and things seemed to check out.  I read his site and then went back to Google and typed in “Tim Sykes fraud” and found an article by Michael Goode titled, “Tim Sykes is full of bullship.” I read the article and thought, “HA!” a fraud afterall.  Then I noticed that there was an update to the article titled, “The truth about Tim Sykes from a former critic.”

I thought, “Wow.  Didn’t expect to read that.”  So, I started following Tim as a non-subscriber through the end of 2008.

On January 17 I signed up for a monthly subscription to Tim Alerts and traded with him full time (as best as my schedule could permit) for two months.  I would get up early on Monday and Tuesday and follow his advice and the market all day.  I would have to sleep in on Wednesday through Friday since I work till 2:00 am, but after getting up I would camp in front of my computer doing research and following his alerts.  I couldn’t short, but I would follow his buy recommendations and try to understand how he came up with his watch list.  After two months I was burned out from lack of sleep and not getting anything done around the house.  On top of that, my wife and I were beginning our training to climb Mt. Rainier in August of 2008 and it was hard to carry my lap top all over the house and work out at the same time.  I just couldn’t keep it up and cut off my monthly subscription.  I finished this two month experiment on March 16 and closed the month with $5,895.34 in my account.  A profit of $1,394.64.  Not a bunch of money, I know.  Of the 10 trades I was able to execute with him, and that I was able to execute using his advise that I traded on my own, over that time period nine were profitable.  I had never been able to do that before.

After ending the subscription I went back to concentrating on work and training for Rainier.  I continued to follow Tim’s website and experimenting with my own watchlists but could not figure out how he was spotting stocks.  From April to the end of August I executed 12 more trades on my own, but trying to use his technique.  10 of those trades were profitable.  Some I held for a day or two, some I held longer.

In June I purchased some of his videos and became a yearly subscriber to his Tim Alerts.  I bought both Penny Stocking videos and Tim Fundamentals.  Unfortunately, I did not watch them in their entirety.  More on that mistake later.  I was starting to feel comfortable that this was not a scam and there was something to this technique as even an idiot like me was nailing 80% of my trades.  I still wasn’t sure why I was, and that was the underlining dilemma I was facing.  I was afraid I was just being lucky.

By the end of August my account was up to $6,931.29.  I couldn’t believe I was being this successful on my trades.  I wasn’t making a lot of money, but that wasn’t the point.  The idea was to see if the technique was valid.  I did not want to invest much money into my trades.  I was usually taking a position of about $1,200 to $1,500 per trade.  But 19 profitable trades out of 22 showed me I was on to something.  Maybe I was morphing from a Sucker into something better.

At the end of August Tim advertised for a 2-day trading seminar in October in Las Vegas.  I signed up immediately.  The chance to see how he makes that watch list was huge for me.  I also wanted to meet him in person and see what kind of person he was.

In September 2009 I hit a speed bump.  I had four negative trades in a row and my account dropped to $6,277.08.  I wasn’t worried about how much money I lost, I was concerned about why I lost that money.  Why did I screw up the last four trades?  I stopped trading completely.  I sat down and finished watching the videos (although I still have Tim Fundamentals to watch) and decided I would sit on my hands till the seminar.  I made one trade before the seminar on October 15 on VRMLQ (a Tim Alert stock) and made a profit of $137.52.

That weekend I got on a plane and flew to Las Vegas prepared to learn.  I didn’t realize the learning curve would be as steep as it turned out to be.

Hello, my name is Richard. I used to be a Sucker.

The first step in any recovery program is to admit what you are.  In this case it should say, “I am a Sucker,” but I believe in positive re-enforcement.

What is a Sucker?

A Sucker is anyone who falls for anyone who pushes a stock for compensation and then loses all their money.  You know the drill.  A spam email arrives pumping some $.25 penny stock claiming they purchased 5,000 acres of hills in central Mexico and they are going to strike it rich in the gold mining business.  You jump in and the stock his $.35 before collapsing down to $.02 in about two months.  Maybe faster.  Raise your hand if you have fallen for anything even resembling that scenario……okay, why is my hand the only one up?  Bummer.  Some of my own examples:

On March 22, 2004 I bought 5,000 shares of NWBT for $.19.  I sold it on December 15, 2004 for $.04.  Nice, yeh?

How about buying 40,000 shares of SBRX on February 26, 2007 for $.26 and selling it on July 6, 2007 for $.02.  Yeah!

Here’s another good one…..bought 20,000 of VVWT on May 30, 2007.  It crashed, so of course, I bought 25,000 more on June 8, 2007.  I sold it all on May 7, 2007 at $.06.

There were others that were minor, but that is just a small example of the track record of a Sucker.  I was one.

I did hit some good ones too.

I bought 10,000 shares of SPKL on 9-24-07 at $.80.  I sold 5,000 shares on October 1, 2007 for $1.00 and then another 5,000 shares the next day at $1.10.  On October 3, 2007 I bought 5,000 more shares at $1.05 and held that till October 10, 2007 and sold it at $1.30.

On November 14, 2006 I bought 5,600 shares of AXTG at $.92.  It jumped to $1.31 by November 20 and I sold 2,600 shares then.  I held the rest until selling it all on January 9, 2007 for $1.96.

On July 5, 2005 I bought 175 shares of IIJI at $9.90.  I sold it on November 10, 2005 for $11.17.

I also made money on real companies like AAPL, MSFT, UPL and XTO.  Just to name a few.  I got in on the NFLX rage and made some money there as well.  The problem was I was losing as much as I was making and I was holding stocks like AAPL, MSFT, UPL and XTO for years to make that profit.

I was looking for a better way.  I was looking to kick my addiction to Sucker trading.

Welcome to my world

 

 

Thank you for checking out my blog.  I’m glad you’re here.

I am still currently in the process of building this blog, so please be patient as I construct the look and features of this blog.

In the coming days I will begin regular posts on this blog about my experiences in day trading.  Both the good and the bad.  All spelled out for everyone to see.  If I fail miserably, then this will be a short term experiment.  If I succeed, even moderately, then this could be an interesting experiment.  I hope you stick around for the ride.