Readers of my past and present market blogs know that I try new services often. I’ve joined millennium traders live trading room (and quit due to their very high price tag). I’ve been a thestreet.com subscriber (and quit because they don’t say much that you can’t see on all of Cramer’s other free outlets). I’ve recently joined stocktickr (and so far am impressed by their service). And on and on… I always let you know what’s worth it and what isn’t. I hope you benefit from that.
Why do I join all these things? Can’t I come up with trading ideas on my own? Of course I can, and if you read this site you know that I do. But, I think it pays to always be vigilant in this game. What works today may not work so well tomorrow, and wouldn’t it be nice to have a few fresh ideas on hand that are in use, and promising? I think so. As such, I read quite a few market sites and blogs every day, to see what kinds of ideas are working out there. I devour market-related books like candy, and post my thoughts on them here. I post my trades, and occassionally write my own views on the market, and plan to start doing a lot more of that in the future.
My goal is to make a timely source of trading-related information that lots of people will want to visit daily. I like the companionship, and I like helping people. Hopefully, as readership grows, I will be able to subsidize the work I put into my site via advertising. If you are interested in advertising on this site, please contact me.
Highchartpatterns.com
The newest service I’m trying is highchartpatterns.com. They are a daily e-mail watchlist for intra-day/swing stock moves. How have they performed? Hard to say, as they are brand new. They’ve been running one week, and that week was profitable. Their website looks like it was from 1994, but when you notice how fast their pages load, you’ll be wishing more sites were like that! I admit, I miss the old days when web pages served more information and less flash animation.
I’ve gotten my first mailing from them today, and I was pleased to see–in addition to the watchlist for tomorrow–a fair amount of commentary on the previous week, as well as the outlook for the days ahead. I hope that’s not just new-company enthusiasm, and they keep it up. The mail has charts for their picks, annotated with the technical analysis that they did, and with a description of the conditions to look for on entry. One of those conditions is a price target it should pass prior to entry. They also suggest explicit stops for some, but not all, of their picks. Their site has general stop-choosing advice, but on first sight I wish they would give explicit stops (with analysis) for all of their picks. I’ll reserve judgement on that until I’ve tried them out for a couple weeks, though.
They have a generous three-week trial (many sites only give 1 week), and are one of the few services that don’t require a credit card to participate in the trial. I think that’s a sign of a group that believes in their service. When I have to give payment information to sites for a FREE trial, I feel like they are hoping I’ll forget to cancel the trial on time, which to me is just as sleazy as complicated mail-in rebates.
I’ll let you know how it goes… but there’s also no reason you can’t try the trial as well. All you have to do is send them an email. If you do, please mention that you heard about them at my site. It helps businesses to know where good places to advertise are, and they will also extend my trial period as referrals come in. This will allow me to spend more time reviewing the site, and providing you with feedback, without incurring overhead.
You know by now that most of my posts about services slant negative, as there are a lot of bad sites, and a lot that are okay but overpriced. Example 1, Example 2, Example 3. It’s hard for full-time traders, especially new ones (I should know… I’ve been at it full time for less than a year, after years of part-time trading). I want to help people find the best places for information, so I can’t pull punches.
July 16th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
[...] As first mentioned here, I recently followed highchartpatterns.com’s service for their 3 week trial. Here is my review. It’s going to be pretty positive… I’m going to subscribe for a while and see how it goes. If you are only attracted to negativity, there is a section of criticism at the bottom that you can just skip to. :-) [...]
October 7th, 2006 at 2:35 am
hi,
have the results of millennium traders been close to what they publish on their site? was it realistic to achive this gains simply by following them?
October 7th, 2006 at 10:19 am
@JF: their reported results are an honest reflection of the rules for reporting on their website. But, if you read those rules, it’s easy to see how you could never match that performance. _they_ don’t even match their reported performance.
First off, when I was there, they allways stop out at $1 per share. So, if you want to stay in the trades as long as they do, and also trade enough shares to have a meaningful upside, you have to have a _lot_ of capital.
Second, if the stock goes even 1 cent in their favor after their call, it is recorded as a 1 cent win, even if it immediately shoots down to their stop after that.
Third, when I was there they had 4 moderators. So, between them, they could be in 6 or 7 positions at once. Do you have that much money and agility, to follow 7 simultaneous calls?
I thought it was a good, if pricey, service. But, don’t sign up to take their trades. Sign up to interact with some very serious and very capitalized traders. Ask them lots of questions, and look at the calls made. Ask yourself what they were looking for that got them into the trade in the first place. I learned a lot that way. I only sometimes tried to take their trades.
I was a real beginner then, though. It’s possible if I went now, I’d be able to see what they were intending when they started stalking a stock, and be able to get in at the same time they made their call, if there was a suitable stop loss price for my amount of capital. But, if I could do that, then what do I need them for, anymore? I just need a scanner, then, to find my own possibilities.