Replies to post #232 on Ecomike's A-Z investments chat board

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Now that !$ the million dollar question...

I'm more like the "Forrest Gump" of OTC but I'll bite...

You asked for it, so here goes... In increments ;-)

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People...

When a stock makes a breakout, I look to see who called it and who has been sitting on it. I make a determination from that. Are they front loaded, pumping, on top of news, insider, lucky, on the level, spewing every ticker with volume or whatever. Understanding IHub personalities and their motives are a useful tool for comparing your technical analysis with others, identifying momentum and exposing dumpers. Pick them out of the crowd, read them and learn from them.

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Boards...

IHub and Yahoo have tons of message boards that have huge numbers of posts. Wading through that massive amount of garbage is usually a waste of time. I follow boards that tend to have good DD or low volume/quality posts. Following message boards is for finding fresh perspective and/or ticker suggestions that are not necessarily exposed using other methods. In general, topic based message boards can be useful as long as they are not flooded with junk posts, irrelevance or self serving pumpers and/or bashers. Post the symbol, suggest that it is a cross, pinch, bounce, breakout or whatever. I'll take it from there ey...

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Watch Lists...

I have more watch lists than I can watch dude. I've got...

All Stocks->a list of anything I've ever seen that was remotely interesting.

My Stocks -> what i consider "play money" consisting of OTC that I own, used to own or want to own

Bigs -> Stocks and funds that I am invested in and rarely trade

Bounce

Volume Alert

Momentum

Recommended

Insider Buying

Marijuana

BioMed

Metals

Oil & Gas

Futures

Auto

Airlines

Banks

Solar

Technology

And last but certainly not least...

Bankrupt & Grey

I'm sure I left a list out, but I'm sure you get the point.

Categorizing interesting stocks into groups makes it easier to sort and review whenever I want.

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It's not really about "how you keep track of so many stocks..."

The real trick is how you find the stocks that matter.

You are a hard core DD and sticking to it type investor. I dig that about you.

I do that as well, but I do that with big board stocks and funds mostly.

I use very few OTC tickers as a place to "Stash my Cash" while I wait for them to mature into profitable and self sustained companies.

I accumulate shares in those "special" companies by rolling profits into them from swing trading, flipping and riding the momentum however I can to make the best of it.

Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn't.

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I don't really keep track of a lot of stocks. I spend a lot of time getting familiar with as many stocks as I can, but there are just too freakin many of them. Luckily, I guess, I don't sleep much and have a few hours to study each night. Sometimes more. I am still learning this game and enjoy it so it works out for me.

I can only follow a few dozen tickers closely and go as far as to DVR trades and MM shuffle for a handful using Think or Swim. I like to be able to go back and see exactly what happened. I often miss a trick or two even with those that I know are coming.

What I have found most useful is trade alerts. Right now I am using subscriptions at Profit Spy and Trade Ideas to hit me up.

I get lots of hits, daily, with custom criteria that I have set up, most of which I can't react to given my night trader status, but it has worked well for me to the tune of 600% up this year.