This Zippo Armor Flame from March 2004 (C04) recently sold on eBay for $431.69. The eBay post said that it was from a Zippo employee, so I assume it’s a one-of-a-kind or from a very small production batch. I do collect Zippo Armor lighters, but did not participate in the bidding for this one, though it is a beauty:
73 minute running time … perfect length … really enjoyed this one, good, intelligent writing … fun story, early “horror” but not really, it’s all very subtle. Farr called it “a masterpiece of creepy, psychosexual mood cinema.“ I wouldn’t go that far, but it is good, and does get a coveted green-go rating.
Don't nobody like chicken gumbo?
Some will claim that the early guesses at a top were tiny “starters” which resulted in “paper cut” losses. Alternatively, no ”paper cuts” were taken and the later adds to the tiny “starters” were all “full size,” so it turned out that the trader had a great average and a fine trade, despite the early covers. Who knows? Maybe they’re not lying, but this looks like the approach of someone who “shoots from the hip.” Why risk busting out to a true runaway?
Click to enlarge
There was a lot of action in the microcap hard-to-borrow market today, but I selected CleanSpark Inc over ICD (Independence Contract Drilling Inc) since I considered ICD a “latecomer.” CLSK did around 60,000 trades today and ICD did around 94,000 trades. I paid 9.97 cents per share to borrow CLSK ($997 per 10,000 shares borrowed). I made nearly 30% on this trade all out (before fees).
Slow the tape and watch closely at key times … pause it, rewind, play at near normal speed (1/4 speed), pause, rewind, STUDY. I know it’s sort of intimidating to look at the order book like this, but once you know what you’re doing, you can’t live without it. Make sure you watch in 1080p so that it’s crystal clear.
Love this cover of Last Kiss by Cœur de pirate, I only wish she had switched the gender of the victime … the original by J Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers is also embedded below … we’ll just ignore Pearl Jam’s version:
111 minute running time so maybe could have trimmed 10 minutes or so… Kirk Douglas is great but this is dark stuff from Shmuel Vildr … cashing in on tragedy … took me several nights to watch it because I had to take breaks from it … probably due in part to the quarantine, so my mood isn’t as chipper as usual … cynical newspaperman Chuck Tatum going to get back to New Yawk from the boondocks one way or another … good old 1950s misogyny to boot … I’m going to hold off from recommending this one for now, though during brighter times I imagine I’d quickly give it a green-go rating. John Farr did anyway.
The circus is over!
The great Glen Campbell … had to be recorded in snippets because of the Alzheimer's … R.I.P.
Moleculin Biotech Inc was the stock du jour … MBRX did 264,000 trades by end of day … it was hard to borrow and I paid 1.9 cents per share for the borrow ($190 per 10,000 shares) … I had an average of $1.468 on my short and covered at an average of $1.249. Gross day trading gains of around 15% are very pleasing, but of course there are losses and fees every day. Still a tough way to make an easy buck.
After my daughter started Kindergarten and I was able to resume day trading in February 2017, I bemoaned the lack of borrowable shares in microcap stocks at Interactive Brokers — for two long years! — before finally sending some money to a specialty broker who could locate hard to borrow securities for me. Hundreds and hundreds of opportunities missed, but that’s what happens when you’re stubborn and sort of simple-minded, like me. Water under the bridge, I guess.
Remember to slow down the footage using the YouTube player and pause, rewind, and study crucial points during the day. Bookmap provides a unique view of the book, infinitely better than staring at the Level 2 and time and sales, a.k.a., “the tape.” Enjoy!
There were three stocks du jour, all hard to borrow, but I thought I’d focus on Akers Biosciences Inc again since they did a midday stock offering and those are always interesting to view in the Bookmap. I paid between 8.93 and 10.35 cents per share for the borrow (ave. $964 per 10,000 shares) … I shorted at $7.93 ave. and had an all-out cover of $5.718 ($5.50 best), which was good. AKER did 122,000 trades today.
The other stocks du jour were DPW (127,000 trades) and YGYI (87,200 trades) … I traded both of them with less success, bungling the trade management on both really … I expected them both to fall much farther than they did, and I wasn’t vigilant about managing the balance of my positions after the initial covers (overconfident?), and got jammed out on both of them — scratches when they should have been decent gains, if well managed.
I’ve slowed down the tape right around the offering so you can take a hard look at how disastrous a midday offering is for those trapped long from above.
From Kris Velma’s recent blog post:
“… for me, I want to avoid volume at all costs. Anything with over 10 million shares traded, or projected shares traded that day, I avoid completely … The stocks I target are ones traded by chat room members, and none of them are holding long term on these tickers. Once momentum shifts, they will all panic sell and the stock drops off a cliff, then I cover. Scaling your size on these tickers is limited since there is only so much liquidity you can get into them without seriously affecting the price action or trapping yourself into a position if you need to market out, which is why I usually cap my positions to $20,000 to $30,000 dollar value. Still plenty of money to be made when you can make 20-30% routinely on these pump and dumps.“
Update: Kris Velma continues to share his trades … these were his executions on April 8, 2020:
As he said above, these were all parabolic moves, but on very low volume (AKER was relatively high volume, but still “low”) … note his position sizing. He is keeping his position size very consistent, around the $30,000-$35,000 range. He’s no doubt using a percentage of his total account, which has grown hugely of late, so what used to be $20,000 to $30,000 positions are now $30,000 - $35,000. His losses will always be proportional to his gains, it looks like, i.e., these are 1:1 risk reward trades, but he’s expecting a very high win rate. He might be using some fixed percentage for his gains, the exits are a bit of a mystery to me .. he might be better off just carrying things into the close, but that may be too psychologically difficult with these microcap hard-to-borrows.
