I actually bought into this and had to sell because it hit my stop loss recently, but it is forming a bull penant. Look for it to consolidate for another couple of days and then breakout.
Potential Entry: $32.00
Price Target: $37 – If you look back at the daily chart, it has a gap to fill up to $37. which makes it the next point of resistance.
Regardless of the trading or investing strategy you decide to follow, both will need one key, and that is finding the stocks that meet your criteria. To find stocks you are looking for, you will need to use a stock scanner, or maybe more than one scanner to narrow your focus.
There are roughly 2800 companies listes on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Plus the 30 Dow Jones companies, and the hundreds of companies listed on the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) – It would be impossible for you to sift through all those companies in any sort of timely manner to find good trading opportunities.
Every trading stategy will have its own set of criteria to help you define what it is you’re looking for. For example, you may be looking for stocks that have gapped up, or gapped down. You may be looking for stocks that have just closed above their 200ma, or whose 50ma just crossed the 200ma in one direction or another. You may be looking for value stocks, and you need to find out which are trading below book value. There are almost countless ways you can filter stocks to match your criteria, you just need a filter. That’s where scanners come in.
Below are some free scanners that you can use anytime. Most have paid version which give you access to additional filters. In some cases you may be able to combine the filters of one scanner with another to fill in the gaps the other is missing (or charging for). I use the free versions of these services as I also have access to my brokerages own scanning tools, and charts which offer just as many, if not more features. I just like the ease of these websites, so I also use them for my research.
Barchart.com offers a free screening tool that I use mostly for quick pre-market scans. However, it is much more than just a scanner. You can use it for free with no account. You can use it free, with an account, which gives you access to watchlists and saving screens among other things. Or you can pay for their premiere version which give you additional filters, and features.
Finviz.com offers a lot of the same features as Barchart.com. I do like their screener better and feel it’s easier to navigate and use. Like barchart.com you can use the website for free, without an account. You can create an account to save your screens. Although you can’t create charts without upgrading to the paid version. I like to use Finviz to scan for swing trade opportunities, rocket stocks, and dividend stocks. A cool feature that Finviz has that other websites do not is their heat map (see pic above), which offers a cool visual way to take in how the market is doing on that particular day, broken up by sector.
Do you have a favorite screening tool that I haven’t mentioned? Write in the comment section below and I’ll check it out. It could be a stand alone website, or even your own brokerages scanners, if you have one you like.
From time to time I will be posting updates on my trading accounts. My P&L, current holds, and what I am thinking about moving forward. I am still in the learning process and trying out different strategies hoping to really hone in on 2 to 3 strategies that I can master. I started my IRA with $2800 in December 2018, and my brokerage account with $3500 in early 2020. Not included in the numbers below are my BTC holdings and general savings.
MONTHLY REVIEW
Below are the overall results from my past 60 days of trading. I did take a bit of a percentage hit, but still above 50%. Theme of the month seems to be slow down, as I have been doing more swing trades than day trades and trying to learn new strategies. In a few weeks my schedule will change and it will allow me to get back to the day trading strategy I had started with. Looking forward to that, but also enjoying the slower pace of the trades of late.
Regrets this month included a day trade I knew better than to try and enter, and selling ACB one day to early to rotate into GRWG. Which on it’s face doesn’t look bad, but ACB popped the follow morning, and had I held it, I could have potentially sold for up to a 300% gain. DOH! Anyway, moving on. You can’t have FOMO in this business.
Positives this month are that I was able to cut my losses quicker and starting to hold my winners longer. Although there are still one or two lingering holds in my portfolio from a few months back when I still hadn’t learned my lesson, but I am riding them out for now.
My speculative $RLFTF play is still in my portfolio – it is strictly a covid play. I am awaiting news on it’s stage III trials, and for it to get emergency use authorization (EUA) from the FDA. I did my own research and looked over the FDA website, and the drug sounds very promising. I may not mess around with penny stocks after this, but I think this has potential, even a pop up to the 3-5 dollar range and I would be extremely happy. I’ll keep you posted. Concerns…it’s a drug, and could fail, despite success thus far. Also, it has a huge float. That’s a bit concerning. However, the company in recent weeks has added to it’s management team, setup a distribution pipeline, been approved for stage III trials, and gotten a new fancy website. They seem to be setting up for something big in the coming weeks/months. I’ll keep everyone posted.
Biggest Gaining Trades (%)
$TPR: +9.13%
$TPR (bought in a 2nd time): +14.49%
$GE: +7.5%
Biggest Losing Trades (%)
$MIK: -7%
$UUU: -8%
BTC:
I haven’t calculated my gains, but needless to say I am up. I do own some BTC and I will be buying into it weekly as a very long term hold.
Long terms holds: $TSLA, $NOBL
Short term holds: $PLUG
Speculative play: $RLFTF – my first venture into penny stocks. We’ll see how this goes.
Always do your own investment research. My website is not meant to be investment advice. It’s just a way for me to track and keep accountable as well as to share my knowledge and experience.
A stock’s float refers to the amount of outstanding shares that are available for trade (buy/sell). To determine the amount of outstanding shares a company has, you can do a quick search on Yahoo Finance. THIS LINK will take you the Yahoo Finance “Statistics” page for the Coca Cola Company, stock symbol $KO. If you scroll down to the “Share Statistics” you will find the float. I have highlighted for you in the image below.
The “floating” stock is calculated by subtracting closely-held shares (insiders, major shareholders, employees) and restricted stock that may arise from an IPO.
Why does float matter?
Depending on your trading strategy, you will want to narrow your searching by float. In my day trading strategy I look for companies with less than 30-50 million shares. While that sounds like a lot of shares, that would be considered a low float stock. You can see in the example above that $KO has almost 4 billion shares of float, which is very high.
In my day trading strategy I am looking for stocks that are moving quickly in one direction or another. A stock with less shares will be more volatile than a stock with lots of shares. This is simply due to the dynamic of supply and demand. If a low share, low cost stock has good news in the morning, lots of traders will pour into that stock, and since there isn’t as many outstanding shares, the price of the stock will fluctuate wildy in the first hour of the morning. Riding that volatility is where you can make (or lose) money in a short amount of time.
If you’re looking at a stock as more of a long term investment, float may not matter as much in your calculations. You would be looking at other fundamentals like ROIC, PE Ratios, ROA, etc.
To learn more about stocks and investing be sure to follow me on twitter @cchapeton.
CC Investing