Friday and Weekly Recap for 6/18 to 6/22/12

Had a pretty good day on Friday to make up for the week’s earlier losses, so I was able to finish green on the week.  I covered a swing short in SEFE at 0.385 from a 0.38 entry for a tiny loss as it wasn’t really breaking down.  I covered a swing short in MITK; I had shorted 2K shares on Thursday on the afternoon fade at 4.28, and covered half at 4.07 and the other half at 3.84 for a nice gain.  I had a tiny swing short in ISCO that I covered at 0.38 from a 0.4 entry.  I also took a small loss in a swing short of the pump and dump EAHC, covering at 0.28 to 0.29 from a 0.26 entry.

I experimented with a new strategy that was discussed by Biorunup that related to the Russell 3000 index reconstitution.  I bought small positions of DSCO, THLD, RPRX, SUPN, BDSI, IMUC, CNDO, CPIX, ETRM, SGYP, and DSCI in the morning, and sold them in the afternoon.  It didn’t work out, as some were gains and some were losses for overall a $-35.90 loss.

Other than MITK, the rest of Friday’s gains came from OSIR.  First, I had OSIR July 10 Puts that I sold for 1.10 from a 0.90 entry.  I did that when it looked like OSIR was not going to break and hold below 11.  That turned out to be a smart move since OSIR later squeezed in the afternoon to 12.50.  Also, since borrows were not available for OSIR, I had a synthetic short.  This is where you simultaneously buy the put option and sell the call option.  In OSIR’s case I had July 12.5 puts that I had bought over the previous couple days for an average of 1.93, while simultaneously selling the call options for an average of 1.10.  When OSIR was hovering in the low 11′s and looking like it might ramp up in the afternoon, I covered my short calls at 0.90, and sold the 12.5 puts at 2.20.

Synthetic shorts are nice if there are no borrows in a stock and the stock has options.  However, the spread on OSIR options is pretty wide so it’s still a poor substitute for being able to short.

OSIR’s run continues to be amazing as dips continue to be bought; the price action so far reminds me of BVSN (although BVSN’s float was much lower which is why it went much higher).  However, at some point I think it’s going to pull an ARNA since this run is made up of mostly short squeezes, which indicates the run is likely not sustainable.  But all the early shorts are going to have to get bought in first for that to happen.

Friday P/L:  $1010.68

Weekly Stats

Overall, I finished green on the week, although my stats aren’t nearly as good as I would like them to be.  I made a huge mistake early in the week on OSIR by being in too big and not obeying my stops (first time in a long time I haven’t obeyed stops), so I need to check myself before I wreck myself in that area.  So unfortunately my stop adherence was not 100%.

Net P/L:  $372.43

Total gains:  $6111.61

Total losses:  $-5739.18

Ratio of Gains to Losses:  1.065

# of trades:  75

# of winners:  43

# of losers:  32

% winners:  57.3%

% losers:  42.7%

Largest winner:  $582.32

Largest loser:  $-715.92

Average winner:  $142.13

Average loser:  $-179.35

Average trade:  $4.97

W/L ratio:  0.792

Average winning trade length:  1.74 days

Average losing trade length:  2.34 days

Max consecutive winners:  11

Max consecutive losers:  11