...and wait for it to start dropping. momo works

At the peak of the melt up asap was bullish and struggling to break even. So far he's fallen flat on his face out of the gate

Good one, just like your calls in the trading thread last year!

I'm savoring this as 90+% of my portfolio is actually in boring index funds in Roth accounts where shorting isn't even an option, so this glory is the gain I get.

It's really important to point out that many of my short choices have limited float and high short interest. So you may not be able to borrow shares to sell short and, if you can, the borrow will cost you. That said, RIOT at $40 was an exceptional short opportunity. I actually still think it's a good short opportunity at $15, but I haven't looked carefully.

As I found when buying weekly RIOT puts from $40 all the way down into the high teens, the difficulty of identifying overvalued companies <<< profitably trading on such companies.

IMO LFIN is a good short, but I don't know what the borrow costs are. KODK may be a good short, but I'd have to look carefully at how big a piece of the ICO of their coin they'll own. Tread carefully.

Absent more aggressive SEC action, I expect cryptocurrency pump-and-dumps to evolve--I don't think companies can repeat the amazing LTEA/LBCC-style pump. The bubble hasn't burst on cryptocurrency, so there will be opportunities on the short side for those that do their homework.

Thanks TrustySam for making this. It's pretty cool

but I made some substitutions right before the start of 2018 trading

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...0&postcount=74

Oops, guess this took a couple of days to sink in Guess there could be more stock splits in the coming months?

It appears this may have an easy-ish fix! Was able to find a little page on the NASDAQ site where they list recent stock splits - so hopefully all of them get listed, and can maybe check it a couple of times a month to see if there's any that people have on their lists?

http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/upcoming-splits.aspx




Oh dear - may need the weekend to catch up on this one Although, went to check to see how many of the stuff on everybody's lists had dividends, and so far it doesn't seem so bad. Also, it kind of seemed like a lot of companies like to pay out dividends in February, so there may only be a couple to add from last month? So hopefully it won't take so long to get up to speed ...

Will try to add some notes or a list or something, so everybody will be able to see that they got their dividends added/subtracted - will let everybody know when everything is updated

Have a feeling you'll be happy to see the updates - they made quite a difference

Dividends are largely irrelevant. An adjust at end of year will do unless everyone is neck and neck. jb514 should finish the year +75% or so, dividends likely won't make the difference there.

Splits will be obvious because someone's stock will go to -80+% overnight

Guess it will take some practice just to start to get in the habit of keeping an eye out for companies that may be starting to drop - haven't had a lot of practice finding over and undervalued companies ... and the times have tried, haven't been super accurate

After that, guess it will be important to see if there's signs of how much farther things may continue to drop? And then will have to see if there's even any shares left to borrow, and how much they'll cost to borrow, and stuff?


Was wondering if it was maybe too late to pick up some RIOT - and hadn't even noticed KODK as a possible short. Although, guess it's already down about 30% from it's most recent peak? That's a great tip that maybe worth keeping an eye out for any fresh stock blockchain news - and then guess we'll all have try to figure out what sort of extra research may need to be done?

Thanks everybody


Will try to have the monthly update ready for tomorrow ...

Yeah - haha! That is what happened with GBTC lol ...

That's a great idea for the dividends TS - if the dividend updating starts taking a long time, will maybe have to try and leave it until the end of the year. Was starting to put together a list, and so far it's looking like something should be able to do while watching Omarosa stir up drama on Celebrity Big Brother over the next couple of weeks ... so not so bad

So guess will see how things go - hopefully it won't be so bad ... but it's nice to know there's alternatives in case it is


Thanks!

Can we talk a bit about Backstabr's shorts more? Holy hell nice work man!

He's destroying it so far, very nice start! All those crap crypto stocks have been pretty awesome shorts this month for this contest where you don't have borrow fees.

Any thoughts on this GES headline? This seems like the type of story that if the media latches onto could bury the company.

They lost 30% on average during January, which is about 360% annualized, out pacing borrow fees.

My point was simply for any of our shorts it's not factored in, obviously the fees vary IRL.

jb514 with an all short list also CRUSHING

On your Dividend Calendar sheet-

In cell C6: In cell D6: Should be pretty close to what you're looking for

Woah!

Olaf, wow - would you like to be the new spreadsheet person? It's super fun!!

Thou I won't qualify; I'm picking SIAF!

My picks are so hedged, keep hugging the flat line. Wild swings in the past couple of weeks. JB and Brian have gone parabolic in opposite directions lol.

i haven't found a gif for brians start to the year yet but i do have a question. if he reaches -100% hes busto right?

lol I don't even want to look at mine. Took those short vol choices also when I couldn't use 3 micro caps that didn't meet the rules. I plan to lose in spectacular fashion.

today was a fun day, finally something is happening

I'll just put more into my fake 2+2 account to avoid a fake margin call.

The funny thing is that the vol-related stuff crashed after the close and isn't showing up on the spreadsheet yet.

Finally got around to putting together a little month-end summary - if anyone has any ideas for something a little different, please let me know!


January Summary


The big stories of 2018 so far appear to be the continued downturn in blockchain stocks, and the melt-up and melt-down of the market


Top Portfolios

We appear to be an optimistic bunch as a whole - with 14 of us choosing to go with a majority of longs, 5 of us choosing mostly shorts, and 4 of us choosing a mix of both - so the downturn has hit a lot of our e-portfolios quite hard.

With the Dow having it's worst day in history today, and with bitcoin down about 66% from it's all-time high, perhaps it will come as no surprise that the top portfolios of January went two people who went heavy on shorts - specifically shorts of blockchain stocks like RIOT, GBTC, DPW, NXTD, LBCC, LFIN, MARA, and FTFT: jb514 and Backstabr have some enormous gains to their names!

Noteworthy Shorts

Other people who made great gains in January from shorting blockchain stocks include DuckU, juan valdez, Mori****a System, mrbaseball, rafiki, and theviolator.

Some other interesting and shorts include ASAP17's pick of CHK (petroleum), and jacobite barnes' pick of GPRO (video camera). In addition to shorting several blockchain stocks, jb514's also shorted several companies saddled with big class-action lawsuits like XNET, WINS, and DRYS, which Mori****a System had as well. Another popular shorting category were companies caught up in the retail apocalypse - JupitorO shorted BKS, juan valdez shorted FINL, and Sam shorted SHLD.

Noteworthy Longs

On the long side of things, something we can all be proud of is that most all of us have at least long that's beating the market - and quite a few of us have longs with double-digit gains ... even after today!

Thriving longs come from a wide variety of industries - the top long of January was KODK for gangip. While bluefall and DuckUchose some stocks of fast-growing Chinese corporations, like JD, CTRP, BABA, and TCEHY. formula72 has PPLT, a platinum stock. JoshSp went with a retail pick TGT (Target). While several of us like juan valdez, JupiterO, and Pokabandito included AI selections. Mori****a System has a defense stock ORBT. And mrbaseball and Wilverine have software picks of WDAY and MSFT. While Zeno chose an engine manufacturer called MOD. TheMVP and twelve yr old have several interesting picks, such as MELI, TTWO, MA, FWONA, Z, ATVI, FIZZ, BZUN.

Stocks to Watch

There are a handful of stocks that appeared on both long and short lists - guess they're stocks that have been doing so well, some people wonder if they may be a little overvalued? BooLoo went long with AMD, while ASAP17 went short. JoshSP and Wilverine chose to go long with NVDA, while BooLoo chose to go short. Other popular short picks in this category include TSLA and NFLX.

Special mention goes to BrianTheMick who is playing to win this! And when the the market does well, we all do well - so after a day like today, wouldn't be surprised if a little bit of each of us would actually like to see that happen


Things to look out for in February - will the market turn around sooner rather than later? Will bitcoin find a bottom? Will shorts continue to dominate? And what does February have in store for AMD, NFLX, NVDA, and TSLA?

GL to us all with our holdings, especially our real-life ones!!