Zeev, OMG isn't cobalt. That seems to a be a myth propigataed by the folks that brought the price down for accumulation.

I think the whole thing is a dog & pony show, a manufactured crisis.

When those who brought the stock down couldn't get more, they let it go up.

ISIS has cancer trial news coming up. I think it's a winner because an analyst cared enough to make up a lie about the trials being bad a couple of weeks ago.

SEPR looks to be ready to close a gap that's over a year old. MLNM reversing, ALKS too. ISIS is just starting to leave the station so it's a good one to catch.

I could go on and on, but it does look like they are ready to run the biotech sector. Since the index is flat, I'm wondering if this is limited to biotech or are there other sectors heating up?

I've been in jewelry wholesale since '87 and it was the worst holiday season I have experienced. I am hearing the same from my retailers and other suppliers.

The headline seems fair to me.

Sorry, Freetrade is till bugging me and I need some feedback from the more experienced traders on this board.

Here is the last e-mail I got:

****************
Dear Valued Freetrade Client:

The reason that there is no figure reflected next to cash balance is because you are currently carrying a margin debit. You can not have a cash balance and a margin debit at the same time. The funds that you generated from your sells this morning went towards reducing your margin debit balance. Which in effect will increase the Available Funds balance and the regular buying power balance.

You can not use regular buying power for day trading purposes and Available funds is not cash if you are carrying a margin debit.

Another factor in this case is that SEPR is held at 40% instead of 30%, which means it is not a fully marginable stock.

The Available Funds and the Buying Power would have been adequate if the entire position would have been held overnight. Once you traded those 200 shares, you created a Day Trading Buying Power Call.

Sincerely,

Client Services
Freetrade by Ameritrade
*************************

Now Daytek/Ameritrade says you CAN use regular margin for daytrading purposes, and I spoke to Etrade customer service and they say the same.

If you can't use regular margin for daytrading, you could be trapped into a bad trade by this requirement and they are reduced to judging your motives when you opened the trade.

Here is the last e-mail I got:

****************
Dear Valued Freetrade Client:

The reason that there is no figure reflected next to cash balance is because you are currently carrying a margin debit. You can not have a cash balance and a margin debit at the same time. The funds that you generated from your sells this morning went towards reducing your margin debit balance. Which in effect will increase the Available Funds balance and the regular buying power balance.

You can not use regular buying power for day trading purposes and Available funds is not cash if you are carrying a margin debit.

Another factor in this case is that SEPR is held at 40% instead of 30%, which means it is not a fully marginable stock.

The Available Funds and the Buying Power would have been adequate if the entire position would have been held overnight. Once you traded those 200 shares, you created a Day Trading Buying Power Call.

Sincerely,

Client Services
Freetrade by Ameritrade
*************************

Now Daytek/Ameritrade says you CAN use regular margin for daytrading purposes, and I spoke to Etrade customer service and they say the same.

You mean I have to wait three days before reinvesting after I have sold?

No where has that been mentioned in the e-mails from support.

I can't make any money if all of my sales are tied up for three days.

duplicate

My intent was to day trade 200 shares and hold 200. What is convoluted about that?

None of my buying power came back when I sold the 200 shares that I wanted to daytrade.

Freetrade is messing me over again -

Anyone who is interested can read my post here:
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=662882

Freetrade is a nice idea, but the implementation sucks.

Of course cheap commissions and little customer service should attract daytraders, but their software is totally screwed up on calculating daytrading buying power.

If you sell stocks during the day, you can not daytrade within regular margin parameters without triggering a daytrading call.

Example: I had $2700 in DTBP at beginning of day. I sold enough other stocks to buy 400 shrs of SEPR, thinking I would hold half and sell half for a day trade.

I sold my half and did not get back any DTBP. They told me to sell more. I sold another 100 and only got back part of my DTBP. Therefore: to get all of my DTBP back I have to sell all 400 shares - this would put me in a DTBP call because I traded more than the $2700 I started the day with.

There is no way for me to win here.

Thanks for the call on EP. I got a bit yesterday and it's looking good. I am WAY too focused on biotech so this is a needed diversificatioin.

Any targets for this one?

Interesting, larger buys today have all been over market. Myabe the shorts are getting their ass handed to them for a change.

What is traderpulse? Daytraders? What is their track record?

I am so far above water on SEPR that I'm not really worried.

In edit - major action happened after hours on the day SEPR was removed from the index. Could this distort the charts enough to fake out the shorters?

If someone has the time, watch the level II on SEPR. I have never seen a stock act like this but it may be due to limited experience.

Level II is moving up and down like there are thousands of shares being day traded, but if you look at the actual tape, very little is happening.

How often does a grand production like this happen and what does it mean?

Are you, or anyone else here, in SEPR?

I sold down to my core block too quickly. I think it's one to watch closely. If SEPR holds its recent gains it is a good sign for the sector.

Help me out here - could a few of you PM me with the way your brokerage calculates daytrading margin. Freetrade claims that they are just following the NASD rules and they don't see that any system that gives LESS daytrading power than regular margin is jacked up.

I'm starting to think that Freetrade is just some web geek playing with an idea and making up software as he goes.

Freetrade - something is really wrong there. My account now shows no buying power call, apparently they went to manually correct my buying power to $3894.24 and put it in the call area instead of buying power balance.

At one point they gave me a call when I wired money in and used it the same day.

Their software seems to be really bad.

Again, caution to anyone who uses this brokerage.

I have started a thread and will try to put some info on it when I calm down :)

Freetrade - it has been over an hour since I asked for an explaination of my daytrading infracton. Normally they answer in 10 minutes.

The only response I have gotten is the RAISING of the call. Freetrade SUCKS. Tried to get through to Ameritrade management but was unsuccessful.

Freetrade - I am livid. Before hours I had a $600 call and they've changed it to $3800 now.

Something is really wrong here.

Freetrade - I am getting really frustrated with this account. Daytrading allowances are smaller than regular margin. I don't know how they come up with it. I have gotten a second daytrading call from them, even though I traded very conservatively yesterday.

Does anyone know of a good, definitive interpretation of Reg-T. It seems as if the law is so poorly written the brokers can go any way they want with it. My boyfriend's margined to the max $4000 daytek account has a larger daytrading allowance than my 32,000 50% equity freetrade account.

I still think this is a head fake designed to liquidate gold reserves before massive devaluation. Biological engineering will make gold too readily avialable in 10-20 years.

** now I'll pull my head back inside my shell to dodge the fallout **

Last year on SI someone was talking about the Home Depot clearance sale generating some nice numbers at the expense of their suppliers.

Apparently HD has enough clout to get goods in at little or no cost on a "trial" basis. These goods were blown out below wholesale last Janurary (I'm remodeling my house and I took some home myself :). Since the cost was WAY below wholesale they were able to liquidate below wholesale and still show a profit.

I know this is just hearsay, but it rings true with my personal experience. I am seeing a lot less clearance merchadise in both Lowe's and Home Depot this year. I am speculating that they stocked leaner and therefore have less to sell out. Lack of bargains could mean substantially weaker January sales.

I'm glad you got some. At this time SEPR is my pick for "poster child" in the biotech rally.

I'm holding my core positon but was able to day trade it from 9.77 to 10.06/10.23 today. I've got what Zeev calls a "cushion" on this one.

Tuesday a block of 153,300 went at 9.84. Today 25,000 went from 10.50-10.70. The block buying seems to support a continued upward trend.

How long have you been trading? Still in the "the more I learn the more ignorant I feel" mode myself.

"but cant see most people wanting to hold over the holiday"

This just struck me as an odd thing to say. If most people weren't in fact holding their positions for more than a few hours or even a few days, the market would implode.

There is an underlying assumption on your part, but I'm not sure what it is. Could it be that you think only traders matter in moving the market?

Thanks. Where do you find the instructions for posting a chart?

The movement I saw was after the close, it won't show up on the charts, and some of the blocks were the largest of the day.

http://www.bigcharts.com/custom/datek-com/datek-rt2.asp?osymb=eln&symb=mlnm&time=5yr&fre....



>

Did it work?

Looking for the "recommend this post" and couldn't find it LOL!

Yes, I do expext Pres. Hillary will happen. Can you imagine what a boon to the economy that will be? Tens of thousands of over 50 conservative republican males will die of heart attacks on election night reducing the future load on SS & MEDICARE by about 10%, the flat tax will get passed and the national productivity rate will go up another 15% (reduction of forms and un-necessary book keeping), and the final law to balance the budget will be a "sin tax" on philandering husbands....

I'm seeing quite a few nice block trades in after hours. I think they're getting ready to bounce the BTK.

Please shut up -

OK, isn't this where the UN should step in and mediate the enforcement of the PREVIOUS agreement?

Zeev, or anyone else who understands this - did we actually fail to deliver the promised alternate reactors? When did this happen and who made the decision?

If we promised them fuel and technology to keep their people from freezing and failed to deliver, the internal political pressure to do SOMETHING must be tremendous.

Is there any wonder they have declared their intentions to re-start the old reactors?

Zeev, I admit a great deal of ignorance in matters of foreign policy.

I read this on the Yahoo fuel cell thread.

http://messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&action=m&board=4687441&tid=erc&sid=4687441&...

If the poster is correct, I am more afraid of our government's agenda than that of the North Koreans (which would seem to be survival).


12/27/02 12:07 pm
Msg: 69851 of 69919

The North Koreans had nuclear weapons before Clinton was in office. President Clinton's agreement accomplished having NK's plutonium-generating reactors shut down and locked up under UN , onsite supervision. In exchange for halting the production of plutonium from NK's reactors, Clinton negotiated an exchange of GE light water reactors (to deliver electrical power) and regualar shipments of heating fuel oil. The GE lightwater reactors were never built.

Because the NK's secretly developed a uranium enrichment program to develop fissile material by another, somewhat less efficient route, Bush cancelled the fuel oil shipments--and chose to walk away from further negotitations. Because the North Koreans believe that this Bush administration is interested in active military invasion of other countries and regime change (I wonder where they got that idea?), they have been prodded to engage in brinksmenship by putting their plutonuin reactors back on line and possibly using the already manufactured plutonium locked up under the Clinton agreement into bomb production.

The Bush Administration's war rhetoric is the most ham-handed foreign diplomacy I've seen in 40 years. Everything Bush and his hawks decide to do works to produce the very events good diplomacy would strive to curtail. Bush has talked himself into a corner--unwilling to talk to North Korea unless they do waht he wants first (while they possibly assemble many new bombs in a matter of months) and leaving the NK's to assume a military strike against them isn't out of the question. This is dumb.

After market hours, could you expound a bit?

I would like to understand the criteria for and definition of your tactics a bit better.

Thanks -

Zeev, did you look at SEPR? Range is narrowing and with all of the block trading that took place on 12/20 (quite a few at 9.50) I think they are getting ready to run with this one.

We have PaulA and Paula posting on Zeev's board. Aren't those two handles too close? Could PaulA be Paul_A or something and I would suggesst not permiting a case unique handle in the future.

Paula doesn't do much shorting yet, PaulA is the one who posted... Gee, shoud IHUB permit an alias that is that close?

I would hope they would be forced to develop the system in such a way that the MSFT java doesn't conflict with the SUN. I installed a Freetrade program last week and discovered that it killed my Etrade program because of the java conflicts. Each seems to think the other is an "outdated program".

I'm still learning to trade, but SEPR seems to trade in a range quite a bit, and the momentum is not to slow and not too fast (good for a rookie).

It also seems to have bottomed out and if this market gives half a chance it could be in recovery mode.