Have a good weekend, guys.

The Importance of Watch Lists

People write in to ask what I do with the Unusual Suspects and Notable New Highs & Lows. Like every other day trader, I keep an eye on them. I put them in quote sheets which I have in front of me on the screens. The Stocks to Watch (or Early Movers) list that I post every day at 9:15 ET is just a list of stuff that is active pre-open. I keep an eye on them too.

Lately there have been a lot of screamers that come alive during the day, which you need a scanner to catch. The symbols that the scanner picks up go into yet another quote sheet. So there's a lot to look at, but it's just kind of going on in the background... the periphery of my consciousness (or semi-consciousness).

Anyway, I bring all this up because I see that DRIV and MRVL have gone to new highs here (along with a bunch of other things), and GOAM is nuts, and they're all front and center because I can see them lighting up on multiple quote sheets. It's important to be prepared in advance, and that's where the watch lists should help you.

In the chart of DRIV below, you can see that when it took off it did so with tremendous pace, and you would've had to dial down to a very short time frame to find a spot to catch it.

DRIV, 1-min. Chart

How to Choose a Pub

It's the end of another good week (hope yours was as well) so I'm going to ramble on here a bit and divulge my pub selection criteria:

• Television: Ideally none, but if there is one it better be off or muted. (Even if it's an "important" football match, it should be muted.)
• Gambling Machines: Ideally none, but if there is one it should be out of sight. (I don't even know how these things work, but they're kind of like slot machines.)
• Music: Ideally none, but if there is any it should be good music and turned very low. (Good music means music I like.)
• People: Ideally none, except for the bartender (who keeps her distance) and your "mates." (I'm still not comfortable using that term.)
• Beer: Ideally lots, meaning a large selection on tap, pulled from casks in the cellar. (No pressurized kegs!)
• Space: Ideally lots, including vertical space. (Ceiling height at least 12-15 feet minimum.)

If you follow these criteria you'll eliminate about 99% of the pubs in London and you'll be left with a handful of very nice places to choose among.

No Stocks to Watch Today

I have a drinking date, er, "business meeting" this afternoon, so I won't be able to post the Stocks to Watch feature. After I weave my way home, I'll post everyone's favorite Friday feature: the Gratuitous Cute Chick Pic.

Chart of the Day -- Bed Bath & Beyond, Weekly Chart

BBBY made a new all-time closing high yesterday. This stock has split four times (2:1), so the unadjusted low in 1992 was around $14. If the stock had never split, it would cost over $700 a share today. Long-time shareholders are obviously thrilled.

BBBY, Weekly Chart

Online Investor Index

I wonder if Ameritrade's Online Investor Index has any value. I guess you'd have to track it over time to see if there's any good information there. Has anyone out there been doing this? Ameritrade started posting that list back in 1999 so there's around five years of historical data to backtest; too bad I never collected it. Maybe I can buy it?

Jonathan Hoenig wrote about the Ameritrade Online Investor Index for Wired back in November 2000: Driving in Reverse. He mentioned it again in a SmartMoney column from February 2001: TrendSpotting. There's next to nothing written about the AOII on the Internet, which may be an encouraging sign that it has some value.

Here are the net results from matching buyers and sellers yesterday:

• TASR: +2.88%
• MSFT: +2.12%
• NT: +1.63%
• SIRI: +0.93%
• GOOG: -11.06%
• CSCO: -5.92%

The Bane of Sarbanes-Oxley

Companies Struggling to Meet Deadline on Financial Controls:

Alan Meckler, the CEO of JUPM, recently wrote that Sarbanes Oxley Is Kafka's Dream.