muscleman

I am currently using TD Ameritrade. I was told that they could let me use the cash swap vehicle called "Federated prime cash obligation fund", which is a money market fund that currently yields 1.6% annually whenever I have cash in the account. Right now my cash is swapped to another government treasury only money market fund that earns very little. Could anyone give me some advice on this? Is there any risks to have cash in money market funds? I heard in 2008 some money market funds were trading at 80 cents on the dollar though most of the time they trade at the dollar. Thanks!

Where there is mystery, there is margin. Hard to fully understand for me also. I believe the exchange then sells the info to high frequency traders who front run the orders. Clearly the HFT must be making money off paying for the PFOR or they wouldn't buy it. Interactive brokers doesn't do this (or minimally). I would imagine that fees are quite a bit higher if one includes the losses from PFOF in the other discount brokers total fees. So is there an advantage for us to trade in IB vs other retailer brokers? Unless your order is so large to tip off HFT to front run you, I'd think there is no difference trading in IB vs other retail brokers. Am i right?

This article is hard to understand. For the payment of order flow example, if a broker asks for premium payment of order flow, why would the exchange just give it to them? I am a bit confused here.

Wouldn't this same logic apply to cobf? VIC can be used as a source for ideas just like anything else. I've found the comments, message boards, network to be immensely valuable. I agree. CoBF, blogs, VIC, etc. are places to start, and sometimes good comments/discussions can correct errors in your thinking and point out risks you may have overlooked. I used to heavily rely on CoBF but not anymore. I found that the best picks are usually not discussed anywhere. SMLR for example. If I like a stock and it is not discussed in CoBF, seekingAlpha, or VIC, that's a big plus. The biggest red flag is when i like a stock but CoBF already has a 100+ page discussion about it. Those picks usually fail spectacularly. :(

I've tried VIC twice and have given up since then. I am an independent operator now and don't want to be affected by any group thinking. It is always dangerous to follow any herd, including the herd in VIC. :) What really matters most for your performance is: 1. Independent research by yourself. 2. Assume full responsibility for failure. 3. Have supreme confidence in your own ability to make money. With that said, I also would like to know the combined average performance of all VIC articles. If the combined performance is not significantly beating the market, then the chances are low for an individual to read through those pitches and pick ones that outperform the market. If he can, then he doesn't need VIC. If he can't, then he also doesn't need VIC.

Bumping this up to see how it's going with TD Ameritrade. My existing broker has now largely locked me out of grey market, otc, etc. TD Ameritrade's website claims it permits OTC trading and a TD rep I spoke to confirmed that. Can anyone currently use TD Ameritrade confirm that they're currently able to trade grey market, pink sheet and "no information" stocks? Thanks. I transferred from IB to TD last year and so far have been happy. What specific symbol would you like me to try to buy and experiment? I can send in a low priced buy limit order to see if they reject it. Thanks for the feedback. ADVC (Advant-E) and PKTEF (Parkit) are two I've had problems with. I just tried in TD and there are no problems with ADVC or PKTEF. My order for GCCO was instantly rejected. I've seen that kind of case with OTEL and GSUM before, but I can call in to place the order.

Bumping this up to see how it's going with TD Ameritrade. My existing broker has now largely locked me out of grey market, otc, etc. TD Ameritrade's website claims it permits OTC trading and a TD rep I spoke to confirmed that. Can anyone currently use TD Ameritrade confirm that they're currently able to trade grey market, pink sheet and "no information" stocks? Thanks. I transferred from IB to TD last year and so far have been happy. What specific symbol would you like me to try to buy and experiment? I can send in a low priced buy limit order to see if they reject it.

Could anyone give me some insights on how Lamberth suddenly had this change of heart? This lawsuit is the same old shit as in 2014. How could he suddenly see it differently than before?

Where is John Carney? He was so actively reporting the outcome of each and every court ruling and hammering investors all these years. And now he stops reporting?

Hi tol1, I have been investing in small cap for a while and here is my best advice for you: Do your own research and use those bloggers (especially seekingalpha) as a contrarian! The best small cap is the idea that you discovered yourself, and there was no one talking about it in seekingalpha. Then it kept going up and up. After 3 months and 200% rise, a seekingalpha article came out to tell you how great this stock is and it is about to go up another 100%. SELL! I've seen countless times when the day a seekingalpha article finally came out for an unknown and under followed stock, the stock marks a long term top! Small cap stocks lack of liquidity, and the smart asses need dumb guys to buy their stocks. Hence the pumping article. As the stock falls another 20%, another pumping article will come out, probably from a different author this time, telling you now it is an even better bargain. And Buffet type investors will usually take that bait and buy more. Then after another year, the company started reporting negative earnings, and there is no P/E anymore. The stock is already down 70% since I bought. I sell in huge disgust. I've had this kind of experience with DAIO, PRKA and a few others. You have to be smart and do your own research! If you can't find any articles talking about a stock you are highly favorable with, that means it is SAFE to buy! If you like a stock but there has recently been a few articles pumping it, DANGEROUS LEVEL IS HIGH! Good luck! You can make 50-100% a year investing in micro cap stocks. Or you can lose 50-100% a year in it.

I noticed that if I copy paste the title in google, it will find the article and I can click "cache" to view the article, but only the first page. There isn't a way to see the 2nd page and beyond. What's your advice? Is there a library access or other ways?

No I think he is simply wrong. These growth stocks have tremendous operating leverage and can grow insanely fast without much capital. Therefore it is extremely hard to value them. Just like value investors, growth investors buy these stocks based on market mispricing due to the above reasons. How can Einhorn be so sure about his valuation on AMZN such that he would hold onto the short no matter how big the loss is? The truth is that no one can be sure about AMZN’s valuation. If he can’t accept that fact then he does not deserve super performance

It is obvious that Bruce's strategy is flawed. Here is my reasoning: If a stock is so good and an immediate catalyst is coming to proper the stock much higher, then his large sized bet has to start making money right away. But after he take the large sized position in stocks like SHLD and others, they went down. That already means he is wrong. Then the logical thing to do is to immediately cut the position size to a normal bet size. But instead he increased bets on the way down, on the hope that market will soon realize the value in SHLD. How is this different than gambling? After being wrong immediately, raise bets and "hope" that things will turn around. That's the exact psychology of a money losing gambler.

I'd be curious to see how many more years it'll take before he admits that his strategy is totally flawed and he initially performed well only by luck. :)

Both are great books and they are interviews with super traders. It was hard to communicate with you especially after the attempt to explain common vs preferred and you didn't get it and didn't want to read a bankruptcy book to understand the capital structures. I strongly recommend that you read books, learn, and stop posting. admin reform does not require congress approval. I strongly recommend that you pick up the investing books and learn, instead of wasting time whining here. That may be a better use of your time. If you need recommendations, how about starting with “market wizards” and “new market wizards”? You need to understand that this trade is only one of the next 10000 trades in your life, and it is really insignificant.

admin reform does not require congress approval. I strongly recommend that you pick up the investing books and learn, instead of wasting time whining here. That may be a better use of your time. If you need recommendations, how about starting with “market wizards” and “new market wizards”? You need to understand that this trade is only one of the next 10000 trades in your life, and it is really insignificant.

I read the previous discussion - not much info regarding should I now use IEX. Also the discussion is 3+ years old.. so much could have changed since. my recommendation is that you do what I am doing. Have an account in different brokers as well as IB and place orders almost at the same time in these brokers and see yourself. For IB place half order with smart and half with IEX. Try for a year and see.

My own experience in many trades over the past year. I have accounts in all three brokers for individual, IRA and my mother’s. Earlier this month for example, MSON was at 17.50 bid, 17.75 ask. Very slow moving stock and low volume. I paced buy order at 17.70. TD and Fido both filled me at 17.67. IB no fill. I raised buy order to 17.75 and IB filled me right there.

I had the same doubts when I read that book two years ago. However, what I later found was that price fill seems to be consistently worse in IB when I try to be aggressive and buy close to ask. So directing the order to IEX only would obviously make the fill price even worse than letting them look at all exchanges for your fill. This is puzzling to me as it seems in direct contradictory to the book’s finding. On the other hand, I also don’t understand why Citadel pays Fidelity and TD a lot of money each year to get their order flow, and at the same time give them better fills than IB.

why do you want a Jaguar? What’s the purpose? Off roaring? Luxury ride?

NoCalledStrikes, how's your experiment with TD AM going? I haven't had any problems with them for a few otc stocks that I own. (NJMC, ATGN, TSSI, QUES etc.)

I am sure his fund has been under dramatic pressure after his high profile SHLD bet failed to work.

Don't forget his MBI sale either. I sold MBI flat after I saw Bruce selling it. Ironically just days after I sold, MBI settlement came and shares were up like 50%.

What? This is unheard of. I switched from IB to TD Ameritrade last November and have been buying OTC stocks with no problem. Their flat fee costs much less than the per share commission in IB. Are you saying that you can't buy OTC stocks in TD Ameritrade? Note that a few months ago IB issued an article to ban customers from buying certain otc stocks trading in the grey market.

Investing is not based on hope. It is based on facts. Democrats implemented NWS, and you are now hoping they get back Congress and reverse NWS? In addition, i think chances are slim that democrats get control of Congress this November. Their biggest donor Soros just said he is not a Democrat. That means he is giving up and now trying to fund liberal Republicans.