Securities Research Services

Is This Time Really Different?

Donald Harder — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:57:43 +0000

‘This time is different’ was a common theme during the late 1990 tech bubble. The theme even made its way into MBA programs across the nation. Ultimately, the share prices of companies with massively elevated valuations, no earnings and poor business plans came crashing back to earth proving giddy bulls wrong. This week, we are [...]

Gold’s Killer Buy Signal

Donald Harder — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:02:55 +0000

Back in October, sentiment was in the dirt and the S&P 500 sliced through key support, raising fears of a double dip recession and a retest of the 2009 low. What happened next was truly spectacular. On October 5, the market gapped down at the open, but quickly found buyers, leading not only to a [...]

Three Bull Market-Friendly Divergences

Donald Harder — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 09:48:38 +0000

Predictions are of that mental substance that your mother warned you would make you go blind if you engage in too much of it, so we are not in the business of making predictions. With that in mind, three charts that likely encapsulate the potential for stocks to rise or fall more than anything else [...]

Dollar Tree Investors About to Get Plowed?

Donald Harder — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:40:36 +0000

Has Dollar Tree $DLTR climaxed? Nearly doubling in price since last February, Dollar Tree is almost certainly on the radar screen of investment funds looking for year-end window dressing candidates, but just how high can it go from here? The daily chart looks quite healthy, which may attract new investors, but the weekly chart is [...]

4 Reasons Traders Fail When Trading a Breakout And How You Can Profit From It

Donald Harder — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 09:04:26 +0000

The Sucker Trade Can you recognize the sucker trade before you buy a breakout? What is the sucker trade? That’s what happens when you blindly buy or sell a stock that is breaking out because you followed a traditional technical analysis trade signal, such as volume, candlesticks, stock indicators, pattern breakouts, etc… without taking into [...]

Why in the Heck is Salesforce.com CFO Dumping Shares?

Donald Harder — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:32:54 +0000

On November 18 we asked the question “Is Salesforce.com the Next Short Seller Victim?” The price at that time was 12% or so higher than it is now; not a huge drop, but $CRM is certainly under selling pressure and if it takes out November lows just above $103, well, Betty bar the doors ’cause [...]

Van Tharp Explains How Position Sizing Can Make or Break a Trader

Donald Harder — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:02:33 +0000

Successful stock traders are risk-takers who live on the edge, pick their teeth with rusty nails, bet the family farm and are just generally smarter and luckier than say your average accountant type, right? The reality is, Rambo only dodges every bullet in the movies and traders who don’t manage their risk by managing position [...]

Risk Management: The Powerful Engine Behind Every Successful Stock Trade

Donald Harder — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:53:49 +0000

Successful Stock Traders are Great Predictors, Right? I’m tired of seeing so many getting taken for a ride by stock services and self promoters who make bold claims about their performance in the market so in the interest of looking out for your interest, I’m going to offend a few people right off the bat [...]

Trading in an IRA: Benefits Abound

Guest Author — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:05:18 +0000

Taxes often come as an impediment to stock investors and traders. Capital gains taxes and record keeping involved in calculating them can be one of the largest burdens facing a stock trader. This is the crude reality that all successful stock traders face. Taxes and commissions eat away a good part of the profit made [...]

Stop Loss Psychology: Part 2

Donald Harder — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 09:12:50 +0000

Stop Losses and Trading Probabilities In the first part of this stop loss psychology article, we provided an extreme example and perhaps an extreme stock trading scenario (though it does occur every day), but it exposes something important about the use of stop losses. You see trading is all about probabilities. If the probabilities are [...]