It's funny looking back how I used to blog on here. A lot has changed, and I haven't looked at these Pages in forever. I made Money playing the Markets, but I spent most of it. I left my Portfolio sitting with $52 in it about 4 years ago. I'm up to $356, but I don't put my Money there anymore. I'm in the book business, now. I guess writing on here helped me to learn Writing and Editing. These Pages are a mess how they are, but learning is learning, and experience is experience.

I have written these pages, and a large number of articles at suite101.com. If you have read and enjoyed or otherwise profited from or appreciated my writings or thoughts please send a donation of at least $1 through paypal to the e-mail address Johhnyc17@aol.com. Your generosity will be greatly appreciated. Please note:there are two "h's" in my e-mail address rather than two "n's".

I checked on the DYHP, would have been a relatively quick and painless 20% gainer.

This Blog has been dead for awhile. I was disappointed by the lack of visitors, and the almost nonexistent ad revenue. I was also busy moving and starting a new life. Things are going well. I didn't get the stock I was trying to buy in November. I guess I should check and see if I would have made any money on it. I decided to pull all my avaiable cash to pay moving expenses, and invested what was left in merchandise to sell on e-bay. E-bay profits have been very strong, but I may shift some money back to into the markets just for fun. I guess I'll leave all this stuff posted. It's kind of painful to have poured out your best stuff to the general public, and to find nobody is interested.

So although I told you how to make real profits in the stock market for absolutely free, I'm keeping my e-bay business secrets to myself. I hope to have enough of a windfall to start trading enough to have something to blog about here in the fairly near future.

Sold out of TRTI except 100 shares which I decided to hold onto long term. I was in at .07 back when it was named EXCB, so at .35 I have 400% profit, not bad, although I had hoped it would go to a dollar, but the numbers aren't as strong now as they were before the last earnings, so I'm out.

I have an order in to buy 3000 DYHP at .25 which I think is the best play available right now for what I have left in the market. I'm building from scratch now, since I took most of my money out to spend on bills and moving. This is a quick in quick out play hoping for 25 to 30% gains, maybe a month and a half tops if I'm right. My main worry here is that I won't get an execution at my price, and will have to buy it higher if I still want in. A penny is a big thing for this kind of trade.

I still like DYHP at .27 or below, but I still don't have any liquid cash to make the buy.

I'm moved, and settled into my new home, and I still have a little money left in the market. I'm on the hunt for a new hot stock.

To find these I usually search by P/E ratio, and current price. Then I check the news and financials on the company. I'll walk you through some of the decision making process.

I found one stock, CYBL, which is currently showing a good P/E, so I looked at the chart. Analyzing it technically, I find this chart very attractive for a value buy. Its near an all time low, and it just had a high volume sell off which could indicate that it over sold. Unfortunately, my fundamental analysis did not convince me that this is a solid value, so although the chart looks very good, and the basic numbers are good, the annual income data turned me off. I predict that this stock will go up, just from looking at its chart, but it lacks the financial strength to be a breakout stock, and for that reason coupled with my limited available funds, I'm not willing to put my money on this one.

DYHP is currently at a bottom, and has genuine upside potential, its a buy at .26 to .29 in the next few days. I'm going to look at liquidating some capital, and watch this one. If it doesn't go up big before I have the money, or show me something I don't already know about in the next few days this might be a winner for me.

EACO looked interesting until I found out that its good P/E right now is purely from discontinued operations.

Note to self: watch netguru, and see whats up when the dust settles on the restructuring.

Kicking myself in the pants for not buying PRESQ when I looked at it in March. I remember I almost did, but talked myself out of it.

THMG is a possible trade if you can get in at .10, but I'm getting tired so I didn't go as deep as I should before making it a pick. I'll try to get back online and give it a better look tommorrow.

In response to a comment by wager witch, I'm going to try to demystify some stock market basics.

1. Every stock has a symbol, which is usually a series of capital letters, or for older compainies just one or two letters. For example MSFT stands for Microsoft, F stands for Ford Motor Company, AAPL is apple computer. Most online stock sites such as yahoo finance have a symbol lookup where if you know the name of the company you can find the symbol, or if you know the symbol vice versa.

2. Every stock has a fluctuating market price. It is usually expressed as a the "last" price (i.e. what the last person who bought it paid). More information is usually offered as bid and ask prices, the bid is what somebody is currently offering to buy it for, and the ask is what someone is currently offering to sell it for. The bigger the spread between bid and ask the less likely a buyer and seller will agree on a price so that both are willing to make a transaction (or that a third interested party will come in as a buyer). It sounds complicated but its really not, its an auction where the bidder is buying in hopes that somebody else will buy what he has bought for a higher price in the future.

3. To buy or sell stocks you need a broker. This used to mean a guy downtown in a fancy suit, but nowdays it often means a webite such as e-trade, ameritrade, scottrade, etc. The broker is going to charge you a commission for buying or selling stock, therefore to make a profit you need to have the stock you own move more than the amount you are going to pay for commissions. With my broker right now, I have to pay $9.99 when I buy or sell, or ~$20 to make any transaction on both sides, if I sell it when is worth more than $20 more than when I bought it . . . I make a profit. Thats all there really is to it.

4. Market prices change. To make all this work you have to understand that market prices change over time. This is how you make money, and what the charts are for. You want to buy low, and sell high. For example, a stocks price today is $1 per share, and I buy 1000 shares spending $1000 plus $9.99 (buying commission). A month from now the market price of that stock is $1.50 per share each share is worth half again as much as I paid for it, if I decide to sell, I make $1500 minus $9.99 (selling commission). I made a net profit on that transaction of $1490.01 minus $1009.99 or $480.02.

I hope that answers some of your questions, and feel free to comment if you have more questions.

Just to let you guys know I'm still posting. I'm in the process of moving again, and my computer spends most of its time in the back seat of my car. My portfolio is dwindling to meet my real world cash needs, but the good news is, I finally found a job, and things should be on an even keel in a month or so.

Hi. My portfolio is performing fairly well, but the cash is not enough to cover my expenses, and every time I take money out I reduce my earning power in the market. Sold SHMT at less than it was worth to get cash into my checking in time to pay things that had to be paid. The job search is coming to be very important. I can only maintain my credit rating for about two more months if I don't get a job. Credit is hugely important. I've had 4 interviews for good jobs, with no call backs. I guess I'm not the worlds greatest interviewer. May have to take something less than ideal just for income. Kept 100 shares of SHMT in my long portfolio along with a little BSIC that I've owned for years bought at 25 cents and sold off over time. I've got to see something out of ATSX, that was one of those it looks ok buy the middle plays that burned me. I know buying bottoms is what I do when I'm most successful, anyway trading is a great hobby for me that is getting me through this unemployed period.

I'm having to liqudate about $1000 dollars to cover living expenses. I've had three interviews, and hope to get a job soon and keep the rest of my portfolio intact. I can make a fair amount of money in the markets with just a little capital, but not enough to live on for very long.

Things are looking up as far as the stocks go, except TRTI which has turned south again, but which I still have high hopes for over the long term. Its a solid company in landfills and waste managment, and is trading for well below earnings with no warning signs or hazards that I am aware of. If it ever makes it to a daollar my 5000 shares will be worth 93% more than when I bought them, and my predictions realized, might take six months though.

Life goes on, money is just a part of it, and the money a guy like me has for stock trading is limited indeed. I'll probably die wondering what I could have done with 100K in the market. Because at a hundred percent a year what I have now would take six years, and at 50% twelve years, if I didn't spend any of it, and though I'm good at picking them, I'm only that good some of the time. Still, I'm unemployed and still free to goof off and eat out because of the market. All in all its been a very positive experience for me, and if I lost every penny in a crash tommorrow, or spent it all on bacon cheeseburgers, I'd still be ahead of the game over all.

The Markets overall have mostly flattened out and quit acting crazy. Recovery on ASTX has me back in the money. Coupled with gains on SHMT anf TRTI the recovery has me up a little over 20% overall since my last post. I spent 300 bucks travelling to a job interview, but I should be able to cover my living expenses for another month. I've made a stunning profit of $9.50 since June running ads on this site because nobody ever clicks anything. I'm winning a few poker tournaments for little money, and I should be able to cover my expenses through Sept. 1st, although the money in my portfolio is what I'm looking at to do it right now. I guess I'm sharing all my valuable experience in the markets for basically free, but its good to have a place to brag when things go right. Lots of people work really hard to make as much as I've made in the markets this month by just knowing what to buy and hold. I'm still holding all three of the positions mentioned above as well as a few other long holds that underpin my portfolio and diversify my risk, things haven't felt like day trading would work, although I am looking for ideas and considering possibilities.

Finally starting to see upside movement on TRTI, but SHMT took a turn again, I put in a sell at 1.49 (still not bad for having bought it at .07 as EXCB), but it didn't get there while it was moving up, all together my gains and losses mostly balance for July, but I'm having to take money out to pay some bills. Looks like I'm going to have to get a job after all. I knew I would, even my best ever was never enough to live on, and I'm treading water with losses canceling gains here lately, so I'm going to probably reduce my blog entries to about one a week unless things suddenly get exciting again.