Identifying possible shares to buy

Fhex

Hey guys,

Ive just finished reading the Naked Trader which was recommended by people here and in some other places as a good introduction to trading shares. I enjoyed it a lot and thought it was extremely practical. However as soon as i started to get down to identifying possible shares to research ive hit a roadblock.

In the book he gives 4 recommendations for finding possible stocks:

1. Newspapers - especially stock market roundups
2. Investment magazines
3. Watching live newswires - especially between 7am-8am
4. ADVFN Toplists - especially the Breakouts list

Now in the book he say first 3 options things can bit hit and miss, maybe generating a couple of leads a month. Having started doing a bit of research with these options im yet to have found anything of interest.

That brings me on to the 4th option, toplists, which are the authors favourite and most consistent way of identifying good stocks. The problem is however to access the breakout list you have to pay.

So been looking into free providers of these kind of breakout lists but ive come unstuck. Does anyone know of any simple lists that identify interesting daily stocks breaking out from a previous ranges? Or failing that is there a way of programming stock screeners to identify stocks breaking out?

Any help would be great. Additionally if anyone wants to share their person views and methods of finding shares to research that would be also be of help.

Cheers!

sabretoothtigger

Try sharecrazy
biancatrends and
digitallook has a share screener I think

Fhex

Thanks Sabre, really helpful resources.

Biancatrends looks especially interesting, exactly the stuff i was looking for. Have you found it useful?

I also noticed Biancatrends has a free programme that tracks shares for you but its no longer available on the website. Know anywhere i could still get it from?

Thanks again.

Jake'sGran

I buy shares through The Share Centre. They send a share tip email each week. I don't always use the tip but when I have done the shares have been worth having.

turbobob

ProRealTime has various types of screeners. For example it'll automatically filter stocks near support and resistance, breakouts from ranges and so on. You can also program custom screeners (there are a few examples supplied) using whatever technical indicators you want. A very simple example of this could be one that screens for moving average crossovers. It is free for end of day use - see https://www.prorealtime.com

Blah99

Be aware that there is some kind of link between Naked Trader and ADVFN. I believe he gets commission or some kind of incentive for new subscribers that he brings in (via his website, "special" codes etc). Using his links do get you a discount off the subscription price though.

This seems to manifest itself in him heavily plugging ADVFN when there are other, very good alternatives. Personally, unless you want L2, no timeout streaming (although Quotetracker can solve this for you for free) and the other markets, I don't think you gain anything by subscribing to ADVFN. If you're new to trading it's almost certainly a waste of cash.

DisgruntledGoat

At least he's reasonably open about the links, and one of his things is to setup other sources of income to fund trading (phone deals was another he did, I think, but i've lent my copy of Naked Trader so I can't check) - so I guess at least he's consistent

My main issue with Naked Trader is that it's pretty lightweight on what you actually do in practice. My interpretation is that much of it is about following the trend, which is a fair enough strategy for short-term trading - i.e. you buy stuff that's going up, and sell before it goes down - but it never really says much about working out target prices to sell again other than vague comments about 'run your winners' which is rather at odds with other stuff about target prices. So I found it a great read that left me ready to jump in, but then almost no help at all once I was looking at real companies and deciding what to do.

Bobby2Invest

Stay away from typical penny stocks. They are nothing but a scam by the penny companies. They pay people to post about the company in order to increase the share price. Then the company releases more shares into the market for the purpose of collecting the money from it. They then repeat the process weeks or months later.

Educating yourself regarding technical chart analysis is also helpful. There are many books on the subject.

About 2 years ago I started playing in penny stocks and soon learned the game behind them. I then started flipping blue chip stocks and did ok getting 5-10% gains a month.

I then decided to investigate identify stocks which had huge swings in their share price. And it became very apparent that bankruptcy stocks were and are a gold mine. Even if the company was to clearly not survive and the stock was to be canceled, you see charts that the stock hits a low right at BK and then increases greatly.

Here's an example after having success in another BK. Soon after Lehman Brothers went into BK I went looking for all their stocks. I don't buy the common stock but buy the preferred's; (nothing special to do about buying preferred's and preferred's having a higher priority in BK than common stock and therefore are a better risk.) In just one of their preferred's (LEHFQ) I spent $75 and bought 25,000 share at .003

That $75 and 25,000 shares today are now worth $2,500, a 3,200% gain.

The wonderful things about BK stocks is that the number of shares do not changed, unlike scam penny stocks.

For another recent example, look at Pilgrim's Pride (PGPDQ).

Aegis

Bobby2Invest wrote: »

Stay away from typical penny stocks. They are nothing but a scam by the penny companies. They pay people to post about the company in order to increase the share price. Then the company releases more shares into the market for the purpose of collecting the money from it. They then repeat the process weeks or months later.

If you have evidence for that, please contact the FSA. Market manipulation is against the law, after all.

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/About/What/financial_crime/market_abuse/reporting/index.shtml

Bobby2Invest

SEC does pay attention. Some on the penny site IHUB are being charged already. IHUB even has a feature to enable people to disclose they have been paid to market a company, often paid in shares. I think these companies simply barely skirt the law. All one can do is warn others.

Don't bypass investigating BK stocks. I'm working towards retirement at an early age and these will let me do it and focus on investing even more; in fact I will be retiring in a few months. I don't mind sharing some numbers as I feel this board is anonymous enough; others can see what is possible and gauge their own success.

Aegis

Bobby2Invest wrote: »

SEC does pay attention. Some on the penny site IHUB are being charged already. IHUB even has a feature to enable people to disclose they have been paid to market a company, often paid in shares. I think these companies simply barely skirt the law. All one can do is warn others.

Don't bypass investigating BK stocks. I'm working towards retirement at an early age and these will let me do it and focus on investing even more; in fact I will be retiring in a few months. I don't mind sharing some numbers as I feel this board is anonymous enough; others can see what is possible and gauge their own success.

You do realise this is a UK site, so the SEC is unlikely to be of relevance to many people here?