How To Find HOT Stock Picks!

Finding those stock picks can be a tough task.

I am very familiar with the frustrated feeling that you can get when starting your trading/investing career, that feeling of being clueless when it comes to finding those stocks that are skyrocketing and on the move, and not just sticking with the boring ones we all know, ie:Google, yahoo, Walmart ect…

So how do you find those stocks that have had huge gains, breaking out or coming across those good momentum plays or finding stocks that have been on the run for several days? I will show you one small simple tool that you can check on a regular basis that is free and is pretty darn handy! It is right here at yahoo’s finance page, Located in a small section called “Market Movers”.

Go to Yahoo’s Finance page.

Scroll down and on the left hand side of the screen you should see this-

Click the Most Price % Change link, which i highlighted in the picture.

You are then taken to a screen that looks like this one below (this is a sample and not real time).

The List!!!

Presented here is list of the top market movers through out the market day. As you can see it creates a list with 6 columns, to me the most important columns to pay attention to are, they ticker symbol(the company), the percentage change, and most important the volume. They key to using this list is paying attention to how many shares have been traded and the gains the stock made that day. Let’s pick one from the list as an example, i will choose “Zygo Corporation (ZIGO)”. ZIGO made a huge 45% gain or $3.34 “dollar gainer” move today. Now as i mentioned earlier the most important factor to look at is the volume or the amount of shares traded in that day. In this case ZIGO traded 1,381,709 shares which indicates this stock is liquid and can be easily traded in and out of if you wish. If you take a close look at “Community Central Bank Corp (CCBD)” they made a 38% gain BUT only on 2,097 shares traded, that is way to low to trade in and out of and not a popular stock to get in on unless you like to watch your money sit there and do nothing.

How can this make you money?

These high percent gainers did not make there huge gains from thin air, they obviously had something happen for this to take place. This list is the starting point in the research process. Take those tickers and plug them into your favorite charting software and do some technical analysis on them, or plug that ticker right back into yahoo finance and do some fundamental research and find out what others think looking at there message boards, all this to determine if it is worth trading or not. Before you know it you will have a nice watch list for the next day with stocks you know will be moving.

This tool is one of the ways i find my stocks and build my pre market watch list, this could be very helpful with yours. Stay tuned for more tips and tools you can use when searching for stocks.  :).

How To Find The Short Interest In a Stock

Have you ever wondered how many shares are short in a particular stock?

Maybe you did not even know this information exists, well it does and can be useful stuff! Finding out how many shares are short of a company can be vital information when looking to trade a stock, pretty much this information will tell you how many people are betting against this stock and want’s to see it drop like a rock. On the other hand this information can let you know how much the stock price can squeeze higher if all those individuals suddenly want to cover those short positions, which will make the stock price spike very rapidly. Some instances for those who short the stock want to cover will be, a positive P/R, Good earnings news, a big buyer coming in and pushing the price higher ect… All of which will force shorts to cover and in turn spike the stock price and if you have a long position when it spikes you could see a significant jump in your percentage gain, it might be in your interest to sell into that spike to hold on to those profits!

In this article i will tell you places to find this information as well as show you some chart examples of a blatant short squeeze!

lets get to it!

1.)The first place i will show you is of course yahoo finance. So open up a new tab or browser window and head on over there.

Once there enter in the company or ticker symbol in the “Get Quote” text box located on the top right hand side.  get qoute box

2.)For this rundown i will use a familiar company “Amazon (AMZN)”. Once you enter in your ticker or the company name a new screen will appear with the stock quote information. What we are looking for is a small link under “Company” section called “Key Statistics”, which will be in the left hand column next to the quote information. I underlined this link with a red line in the picture.

Key statistics

3.)Now that you are at this screen, wonder over to the right side and scroll down some untill you see a section Called “Share Statistics” this is what we want!

Share statistics

This is were you will find the short interest in a stock at that given time. Notice in the picture i highlighted the key areas that will be of most use, Shares Outstanding, Float, Shares short ect… In this example you can see that amazon has 13.68 million shares short of the float which is 332.18million shares. If don’t know what the float is, well it is the number of shares that is publicly traded. So 4.90% of the float is short this stock. And you can see that this number has risen since the prior month which was 17.5 million shares short. This will let you know that a lot of people are betting against this stock and think it has gone up to much, only you can decide if they are wrong or wright and go against them or join them.

Alternative way of getting this information.

Now remember i mentioned this is one of many ways to get this type of information. The second way is a little bit easier to get to and has a tiny bit more information on the short interest.

1.) go to the ShortSqueeze website.

And as before enter the ticker symbol into the text box and hit “short quote”.

short quote text box

2.) Now it will bring up the short interest in this stock with a lot of extra information. This site also has some proprietary information regarding the short intrest, like there “Short Squeeze Ranking” ect.. which they have other things as well but you have to be a premium member to get a hold of that stuff, which in my opinion is unnecessary info.

This is all the info you need here.

short intrest

Conclusion

Both of these sites are free and provides useful information. I just wanted to present more than one option so that you can decide which one you like better. Now you know how to get short interest information on a particular stock and use it to your advantage! Good luck! :)

Examples of some Short Squeeze’s

Stay tuned for more Tutorials, if you have questions or want to give feedback please comment below! :)

ATLAS PIPELNE HLDING (AHD) Failed Breakout

ATLAS PIPELNE HLDING (AHD) Failed Breakout

So, I was watching this stock pretty closely today ATLAS PIPELNE HLDING (AHD) because it was on the verge or breaking out from it’s previous high at $7.00. As you can see from the chart when it was gaining on a breakout point of $4.50ish the first time it broke and shoot way up. I was expecting it to do the same here at $7.00, but from not a very strong market it was having trouble holding on to that point mid day. I bought in at $7.41 with a bad fill i was aiming for around $7.35ish, but i thought w.e i this thing will take off soon. It shot up to a high of $7.45 and headed down from there. I have a tight stop in at $6.93 which is slightly below the breakout point. I will give this thing one more day, if i get stopped out then so be it and i cut my losses quickly,learn and move on! I have a small position since it was a risky play, but hopefully the market will open up strong tomorrow and this thing will breakout for which i expect it to. This was a total breakout speculation trade, this company is not doing well with a horrible balance sheet with over 1billion that’s right a billion dollars in debt, it is has a current market cap of $194million dollars which is pathetic compared to what it use to be. Tomorrow will be the test, lets hope it goes to the moon and squeezes out some shorts :) .

Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Inc. (MDRX) Analysis

Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Inc. (MDRX) – This company offers software, services, information, and connectivity solutions that enable physicians and other health care providers to deliver patient safety and clinical outcomes primarily in the United States. The company operates through two segments, Clinical Solutions and Health Solutions. The Clinical Solutions segment includes enterprise business for large physician practices and integrated delivery networks, and professional business for smaller or independent physician practices. It provides clinical and practice management software solutions and related services. The company is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Inc. is a subsidiary of Misys plc.

IT in the health care industry is booming right now and Allscripts-Misys Healthcare is just one of the leading companies providing IT infrastructure to the health care industry. This company is a diamond in the ruff with a current trading price of less than $20/share(1-7-2010) and a growth multiple of 82! Allscripts has huge potential for growth and inovation in health care, with it gaining new customers from all over the country. It’s most recent news came from Mountain States Health Alliance (MSHA) when it “Selected the Allscripts Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Practice Management (PM) solutions for 300 employed and affiliated physicians and mid-level providers to enhance the quality of patient care, improve patient communications, and better manage the cost of care delivery.” and will provide this service across a Four-Sate area. Read the full P/R here. This goes to show how in demand these services are especially with how the country is turning over to an entire electronic health care record database.

The companies CEO Glen E. Tullman is really taking this company to new levels, he has been with the company since 1997 and has a wealth of knowledge in the industry. Glen has been on Jim Cramer’s Tv show “Mad Money” several times describing what his company does and were it is going. Although Jim recently gave MDRX the “Sell Sell Sell” When he said “I’m saying ka-ching, ka-ching… let’s ring the register and bring home some profits. Healthcare reform may very well be history.” he made this statement on 12-1-09. I really could disagree with Jim here, with it’s trading price at $19.60(exatcly as i write this) is down from it’s 52 week high of $22.21/share this could be a nice place to start getting in. I would wait to see were it starts to level off, and see the first qtr report of 2010 and make my decision.

Technical Analysis.

MDRX_Chart

As you can see from the chart this stock has been on the steady rise since it’s low of $7.61 in February and hit a 52 week high in October at $22.21. It looks as if that $22 mark is resistance and as you can see it tested that mark at the end of October and failed to break it. It does have some good support around the $18ish area were it most likely will hit and bounce off of. The volume is pretty low with an Average Volume (3 month) 905,897 shares traded. I did get a MA(4.9) cross to the down side with an ADX below 20 signaling that it is selling off and headed lower. This needs a good momentum push to the upside with a good amount of volume to break the resistance barrier.

Overall

I like Allscripts Fundamentally but Technically it needs to improve. Although this would be a great opportunity to pick up some shares for cheap.

Quick Glance at Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Inc. (MDRX) Fundies….

Market Cap – $2.86B

EPS – 0.24

Growth Multiple – 82 (current market price / eps = M)

P/E ratio – 83.22

Total Cash – $84.85M

Debt – $41.19M

Qtrly Revenue Growth (yoy): 77.70%

Shares Outstanding – 145.13M

Float – 61.94M shares

Recent Analyst Coverage.

18-Dec-09 Maxim Group Initiated Buy

18-Sep-09 Caris & Company Initiated Above Average

18-Sep-09 Piper Jaffray Upgrade Neutral

References: yahoo Finance, Finviz.

Using StockTwits

How did i find out about StockTwits?

I knew nothing about twitter until i found StockTwits. I wanted to talk to other traders/investors and was desperately trying to find the right forum,blog or community, and nothing was striking my fancy until i came across StockTwits. When i found that this place had a streaming IM type of communication that was real time and talking about the subject i loved, heck were do i sign up? Heh, well apparently i have to get a twitter account in order to participate. So i signed up threw twitter and got into StockTwits. But when i was reading the “Tweets” i had no idea what some of the syntax was or how to even post. Well after trial and error and reading a bit on the net i found out how to. Some basic syntax is:

@

$

$$

The ‘@’ symbol followed by a user-name, will be a reference to a particular user with your message attached to it.

The ‘$’ is the most used and well known, it followed by a ticker symbol will display your tweet in the StockTwits view which usually you tweet this and ananalysis.

The ‘$$’ is used when you just want to be shown on the StockTwits interface without talking about a particular stock, but this message must be Finance related.

More on syntax here.

So what are some of the benefits of using StockTwits?

You can use StockTwits as a means of communication between others interested in the markets, or you can use it for some good information :) .

What i mean by information is, news alerts, stocks breaking out ect… This could be very useful since you cant keep your eyes on lots of stocks at one time, or if you are unfamiliar of the stock itself that just did not make your watch list. As everyone knows news can be hard to come by, especially if you don’t have some super high speed super expensive news alert subscription, but using StockTwits you will be able to capture that news fast because you have the fast majority of people on StockTwits wanting to be the first to announce the news. Why not just wait for all those tweets, that way you don’t have to do any work besides typing that ticker into your trading software and validate whatever is going on. ahh ha!

How not to use StockTwits.

Now there are some things you should keep in mind when using this service(which i should mention is free). A lot of people that use StockTwits are regular traders/investors and are not professionals or registered advisers. So any information or advice that you may read on the interface such as, Buy or Sell alerts should not be considered unless you yourself do your own due diligence and decide if you want to take action on that or not.

Also StockTwits should not be used as a place to promote your trades and spam the interface with pennystock alerts and so forth, StockTwits will contact you and warn you and eventually ban you, so don’t get into that.

Conlusion

StockTwits is entertaining and could be used as a tool, but always use your brain when reading some of that stuff. I will mention that there is an application out there that uses twitter and StockTwits in a nice and fancy setup, called the StockTwits desktop app, I on the other hand tried it and could never get into it, i just stick to the browser. So check out StockTwits for yourself and see what all the fuss is about.

you can follow me on StockTwits here.  :)

4 Stock Chart’s to point out 1-5-2010

Kandi Technologies, Corp (KNDI) – Looking at the chart you can see it is failing it’s attempt to breakout above $6.04. Volume is also lower than the previous day, it might take a good green market day to power threw. This to me looks like it will top here and continue to consolidate in the range pointed out in the chart. Keep and eye out in the next coming days as this unfolds.

KNDI chart

Taylor Capital Group, Inc. (TAYC) – Just check this thing out, this stock does not want to stop it’s consistent rocket higher. Although we had a slight down day today on the markets, you can see the gains getting somewhat weaker or not as much and ending on a red day today. Could this be the turning point or a breather? Keep your eyes open, this thing could dump!

TAYC Chart

Gulf Resources, Inc (GFRE) – This stock is continuing it’s breakout at $11.00 currently sitting at $13.65. I am not sure if it can keep going as you can see the volume was cut in half on this day. If you did not get in at $11.05 then i would say you missed the breakout and the easy gains. Next….!

GFRE chart

Intevac, Inc. (IVAC) – Looking at this chart it is deffinent breakout at $13.53 and it continues with good volume. If i would have caught this sooner, i would have gotten in that second day at $14.00 for a nice dollar gain on the day!

IVAC Chart

Keep a look out for more, i am always on the hunt for interesting chart’s with obvious buy in signals! :)

Stock Watch 1-5-10

Stock Watch 1-5-10

Taylor Capital Group, Inc. (TAYC) – This financial company just keeps going, made another 2.11% gain today and does not look like it wants to stop. When looking at the chart you see this big green line shooting up, makes you want to jump in. I am keeping a close eye on it, i have seen stocks do this and one day just take a death spiral down to nothing. If this does happen it could be a nice short, you just have to watch for when it starts going red. It semes as though this company is turning it self around, with new businesses and a change in Directors which could be the reason for its rocket to the moon. I am not sure this would do it, unless there has been a lot of short covering because of good news or lot’s of insider buying. Check out the charthere.

BioForm Medical, Inc. (BFRM) – A medical aesthetics company up 60+% today on the news of it being taken over by Merz Pharma Group for $253million at 2:05pm. Check out the P/R here. On the other hand released at 4:05pm this was put out “Robbins Umeda LLP has commenced an investigation into possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law by members of the Board of Directors of BioForm Medical, Inc.” on the grounds that “Robbins Umeda LLP’s investigation concerns whether BioForm’s Board of Directors’ acceptance and recommendation of the offer is fair and designed to secure the best possible price for all BioForm shareholders” check out the report here. BioFarm also received a downgrade today to Neutral from Overweight from piper jaffray. Check out the chart here.

China Direct Industries, Inc. (CDII) – This company engages in the production and distribution of magnesium and other basic materials. This stock was up 49+% today on nothing but it’s outlook on the companies earnings for fiscal year 2010, It claims it’s revenue will be between $130-$150million. The company overall does look healthy, although it is some what risky. The charts look as if it could run some more, it’s overall resistance is around the $2/share mark and break out point around $2.40. It did start to fade some this afternoon but that is normal. The test would be how it reacts tomorrow, i would wait to see if it wants to go higher waiting to see around noon, if it starts to take a dive then it will be a nice short back to $1.40 were it has a little support. Check out the chart here.

Digital Ally, Inc. (DGLY) – This company develops, manufactures, and markets advanced video surveillance products for law enforcement. The stock was up 40% today on it’s earnings speculation and rumors of contracts. This company has a market cap of $45.6million, has $1million in cash and zero debt. Looks good to me! Chart show it is strong with large volume coming in, it has some resistance at $3.20 but looks like it wont have trouble taking that out. It does however have strong support at $2.60. This will be a potential buy for me when i get the correct signs and entry point. Check the chart here.

Kandi Technologies, Corp(KNDI) – This company through its subsidiaries, engages in the design, development, manufacture of motor vehicles. This stock had a huge comeback from its dive yesterday. It was up over 30% today on the news of it’s new alliance with Electronic Vehicle(EV), the goal being to mass produce the electric automobile in china which could bring a lot of revenue to KNDI. Although this stock had a nice spike, it hit ressistance at $6.05 and started to fade from there. The buy in signal for me is if it can break 6.20 and hold, which will validate a Breakout and this beauty could run pretty high! Check the chart here.

Intevac, Inc.(IVAC) – This company provides manufacturing equipment and solutions to the hard disk drive industry. The stock was up over 22% today on news of it receiving eight 200 unit order from Lean Systems, which is good news for the growth of (IVAC). The chart on this is a true technical breakout at $13.59/share, it started to fade in the afternoon but held above this key level. If it holds true and does not end up being a fake-out breakout then we could see some good gains over the next couple days. Check the chart here.

GenVec, Inc. (GNVC) – This is a clinical stage bio pharmaceutical company, that had a nice breakout today. This stock was up 17% and is a true breakout at $1.20 and now resides at $1.41/share. The volume is fair but not huge, this could be a fake-out breakout and could set up for a nice short. It has not had a P/R since November, which seems shady to me. I will watch to see what this does, most likely look to short it if i can find shares and i will only short into a spike. Check the cart here.

Gulf Resources, Inc(GFRE) – This company through its subsidiaries, manufactures and trades bromine and crude salt. The stock has had a steady rise for the past 5 months now with only a few pull backs, today had a huge spike and finished up 17%. Seems the company is growing exponentially with new productions lines, and chemical compounds. This i am sure will have a profit taking pullback, at which time will be a nice long entry point. Check the chart here.

Jim Cramer’s Getting Back to Even Book Review

Booya Jim Cramer

A lot of people have their own opinion on Jim Cramer, some good some bad. I on the other hand think he is a great entertainer with his show “Mad Money”. I also love his books that he writes, they are very informative and his methods he uses are Genius in my opinion. Now mind you they are for what he calls “Home Gamers” that do not have professional market experience nor the time to dedicate fully towards the market. I use Cramers books as a means of learning new strategy, or gain a different perspective of the market and how it works, i mean the guy did run a half a billion dollar hedge fund. I also do not solely use his methods and nothing else, i try and learn every strategy or method possible and Frankenstein them all, this way i take what i want out of it and come up with my own working strategy.

Cramers latest book “Getting Back to Even” is very well written and geared towards individuals that have lost a substantial amount of money in the not only the market, but IRA’s, 401k’s, and the Housing market. His tone when writing this book is very positive and encouraging, makes you feel that you can “get back to even”. I literally read this book in a week, only because i love learning this stuff and cramer makes it interesting. Listed below are the chapters in the book, and as you can see he covers just about everything.

Chapters:

Don’t Give Up!

Crossing the Stock Market Minefield

Putting the Pieces Back Together

Dividends: The Best Offense Is a Good Defense

How to Invest in the Recovery: Twelve Stocks to Watch

The Next Big Thing: Regional Banks Poised to Grow

Getting Back to Even Like a Pro: Using Options to Replace Stocks

Taking Options to the Next Level: Advanced Strategies

How Your Generation Should Respond to the Crash

Twenty-five New Rules for Post-Apocalyptic Investing

Coping with the New World Disorder

Afterword

Acknowledgments

I wont go chapter to chapter detailing what i like and dislike, but i will inform you of my favorite parts, just to hook you so you go out and read it yourself. This book is well worth the time and effort you put in to reading it.

1st Favorite section: Dividends, you think you know but you have no idea… :)

Jim as we all know from his show preaches diversification, well of course he does it again in this book. This time he goes in more detail as to why and how important it really is. One of the main benefactors of being diversified are the companies that pay you to own their stock, we are talking dividends. I always new about dividends and how they somewhat work, but after reading his chapter on them, well i thought i was a pro after it. The methods he presents about dividends and how to play the company that pays them are truly gold and makes complete sense. He helps you not only find these good company’s paying those juicy high yield dividends but also what to look for when you are doing your homework, which what he says is up to date with this new market we are in. The explanations he gives are in plain English and in such rich detail, which makes you feel as if you know dividends and could teach them to someone else.

2nd Favorite: Options

Now i have always been curious about stock options and how they actually work, but when reading about them i just kinda through up my hands and stick to the regular common stock. Well one of Jim’s tactics to getting you “back to even” is playing with options, he does a great job of getting you to read those chapters even if you are not interested in options. So i take a dive into them and see what he has to say. Jim gives a excellent description of options and explains exactly what they are without giving you a bunch of useless terms or jargon. I truly and finally understand options and how they work just by reading this chapter and feel that much smarter now. His second chapter on options titled “Taking Options to the Next Level: Advanced Strategies” gives you a very sneaky yet cleaver way of using options to your advantage with very minimal risk if any risk at all. I wont give his tactic away but i will say it involves both options and common stock in the same company, which if you apply this strategy correctly it could bring a nice return your trading account. I will be experimenting with this tactic in the new year and am excited to see the results, all else fails it will be a great experience.

Overall message behind the book

I can honestly say that Jim Cramer does care about the regular investor and i am very appreciative for him to share is wealth of knowledge and wisdom with his readers and viewers. With that being said you as the reader can find this book not only entertaining but very informative. Cramer iterates over and over how much he thinks this is a golden opportunity in getting back in the market and buying up those beaten down stocks and recovering your account. I believe this is his best book yet and recommend it to everyone!

Side note

It is funny how after reading all of his books, he literally recites all the information in his show which to me is kinda cool because i can pick that out and think to myself which book he said that in and what section, or at least i do :) . For those of you who have read his books should know what i am talking about. ;)

Pick up your copy of his new book here:

Jim Cramer's Getting Back to Even

Cramers other books that I enjoyed reading:

Jim Cramer's Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World

Confessions of a Street Addict

Related posts:

Van K. Tharp’s “Super Trader” Book Review

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