Tuesday, June 27, 2006
June 26 Power Trading Seminar
By unbelieveable popular demand, Shadowtraders returned to Los Angeles this past weekend
and delivered another stellar seminar. This time to a standing room only audience.
It was bring your own chair.
The next seminars are in San Francisco , California, Clearwater, Florida, and Hawaii.
Be sure to book your seminar attendance now. Seating is limited.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Shadowtraders Begins New Journal Series
They can be seen in The Latest Magazine. Their article is called "Pumpin and Dumpin"
It is reprinted here.
We daytrade for a living. We spent years being on the short end of the stick trying to get the “straight scoop” on investing. We decided to share our experiences with you. This may help you spot snake oil.
…And there’s a lot of snake oil out there.
Any of you ever invest in the stock market with a full-service brokerage firm? If you have, you were probably assigned your own “personal” stock broker. That may have been the start of a profitable relationship for the brokerage, but not necessarily for you.
Let me ask you a question here. How do stock brokerages make money? Probably your first response is… they make money on commission. While that is true, if you look at the quarterly reports of many of the larger institutions, commission does not rank as their primary income. Brokerages really make money on arranging Mergers and Acquisitions, Underwriting (the process by which a brokerage raises capital from its investors on behalf of a company), and IPOs (Initial Public Offerings). In exchange for these services, brokerages are compensated not only in cash, but also in shares of stock.
Here’s how they make their profit:
Brokerages and stock brokers all know one thing, the stock market moves on news. When there is good news, the market goes up. When a company is being underwritten or acquired by another company, the market definitely considers that “Good News!”
The brokerages all know this. As soon as they decide to underwrite a company
or arrange an acquisition, they release this information to the news wires. Within minutes, it’s all over the Market. The company’s stock value quickly rises on the emotion of the news.
The brokerages know another thing, emotion is short lived and so is the rise. They know they need to sell the shares they received as fast as possible while the news is still hot. This maximizes their profit – not yours (otherwise, they may be in the stock for the long haul).
So what happens. The brokerage tells its brokers that they have each been assigned a certain number of shares. Either the brokers sell the shares to their clients or buy the shares themselves. Brokers get “REAL MOTIVATED” at this point and start making calls. Part of their spiel is: “buy now, the stock is moving up, the opportunity won’t last, blah blah blah”. Unfortunately for you, the investor, by the time you hear about the opportunity, the stock has probably already reached its peak. In essence you by high and you are now the one in it for the long haul.
How do you protect yourself from “Pump and Dump”? Simple. Anytime your stock broker phones you up and says “I’ve got a deal for you”, thank your broker for the opportunity and say “I’ll get back to you” and hang up. Clunk!
The problem is you just don’t know if the stock broker is calling you because it is a legitimate opportunity researched by the broker, or the call is because the brokerage wants to rapidly liquidate inventory. Saying “I’ll get back to you” gives you the chance to see for yourself. This works even when the broker is your golfing buddy.
Here’s a quick way for you to know just what kind of broker you have. Call back in a day or two and ask if the shares are still available. If the broker says no, understand you have just avoided being a chump. Why? If it really is a legitimate deal, you can always go back to the market and get more shares.
A couple years back we inherited an account and along with it the account’s broker. He phoned us up, gave us the usual perfunctory condolences, and said “I’ve got a deal for you”. He told us that he was getting all his customers into this particular stock. The stock was moving up. He wanted us to buy 1000 shares. He had no idea we knew anything about the market. He assumed he would be able to continue making money with this account as he always had. We thanked him for the opportunity and told him we’d get back to him. We hung up.
He called back the next day. He was very motivated. We told him we never buy stock in drug companies. Why? Because with drug companies you just never know if you will
wake up the next day and find that the FDA has taken the company’s drug off the market or that the new wonder drug was not getting FDA approval.
At the time the stock broker was offering us this opportunity, the stock was selling for $63 a share. A very short time after we declined his offer, it was revealed that the company had withheld that their drug may have been associated with heart attacks. The stock plummeted from $63 a share to $23. Had we not understood “Pump and Dump”, we would have lost over $40,000 and not even had the entertainment value of losing it ourselves. To this date, the stock has never recovered.
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Barbara Cohen and James Horne are co-founders of www.shadowtraders.com. Shadowtraders delivers seminars to teach investors how to consistently trade Financial Futures. Barbara and Jim have developed trading strategies for individuals that are similar to those of the larger institutions trading in the market today. In their seminar, they introduce trading techniques that can help make anyone (novice or seasoned professional) a more profitable trader. Barbara and Jim can be reached at (727) 449-1300 or by email: TheLatest@shadowtraders.com.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Shadowtraders Send Their Trades
Today several students posted great gains. You can see those gains on the Shadowtraders
website
http://www.Shadowtraders.com/ShadowForums
You'll need to register.
Once you register, look in the folder New Users Information.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Shadowtraders Launches more Webinars
These Webinars are specifically designed to inform the client exactly how they can make money.
The new Webinar dates are
June 10, Saturday at 12:00pm EST
June 13, Tuesday 10:30pm EST
June 16, Friday 8:30pm EST
The next seminar is June 24-26 in Los Angeles
Hope to see you at one of our events
Barbara Cohen
Shadowtraders
June 7 Seminar in Los Angeles is a Huge Success
"High Level of Certainty"
I really want to thank you all for this weekend's seminar. I had a reasonably good background in trading stocks before I did it and much of what you presented was not new. In fact there was a lot of alignment with what I already knew. I was delighted to learn about S&P E-minis (a lovely instrument!) The data that you added about exactly what floor traders do fine tuned my understanding. I really liked the extent to which you fleshed out what why they do the things that they do. These little bits of additional background made things that would never quite fall into place really make sense.
I am greatly relieved knowing for certain that I'm using the right indicators, parameters etc. It really helps to know what the big boys use.
Your proprietary indicator is wonderful!
These few things, which are relatively minor in the scheme of things, will make all the difference between trading which is a real fight and trading with certainty and success.
Your presentation was well organized and very easy to follow. You included all of the important things and avoided the other things that aren't really necessary to succeeding with these E-minis. That keeps it really simple.
I have traded stocks for about 6 months, and was at the point where I was pretty consistently making a little bit of money. I traded from a pool of six stocks. The majority of my after-market time was spent trying to figure out what support and resistance lines to use for the next day's trading. I can see that all of this prep time is a thing of the past. I really appreciate that!
I can clearly see how I can make a lot of money on very little time a day, with a high level of certainty.
Finally, I see that you guys really care that we make it. The follow up care (from reviewing daily trades to having the morning conference/Webinar) is exceptional. I really appreciate it.
Kee
Los Angeles