Max More wrote:
> This is hard to do successfully, but for those who want to try their hand,
> here's a promising case: Friday's IPO of VA Linux (LNUX). Given the
> performance of companies like Red Hat and other Linux companies, the fact
> that LNUX has a real business, and that it has "LNUX" as it's stock symbol,
> IPO day should be very interesting. I suspect despite having jacked up the
> initial offering price by 100%, it will still open up 200%. It might be
> very hard to buy and sell the same day at a profit, but if you like to
> speculate (I don't) this should be a fun one. It might even make a good
> one-three month hold.
Max and anyone else still reading this thread,
I cannot and do not give investment advice, so what I am posting here is just my opinion and how I trade. It is very true that short term trading is not for most people. Studies say that 90% of all short term traders loose their entire bankrole within 1 year.
Having said that, and again speaking only for myself, I would not try to buy an IPO on its issue day. The real money is if you can buy the shares before they go public and sell on the opening when they issue 100-200% above the prepublic price. This massive selling by the subscribed buyers is what causes most IPO to crater the first day, expecially the first few hours. Let them freefall for a half day or so until they firm up, and if they are a real company, like redhat is, they will start to climb again and you can buy and make a lot of money. Most IPO's take weeks to get back to the price they went public at.
I would also like to say that when I say fast execution of trades, I mean 2 to 4 seconds from the time I enter the trade until I have confirmation of the buy/sell. You cannot do that with any broker or even an online account such as etrade or amaritrade. The only way to do it is with a true edat acccount where your orders go from your screen to the trading floor computers with nothing inbetween.
I hope this is of help in explaining that I am not an stock investor in most cases, I am a stock trader. I do invest, but only with the money I make trading.
Best to all,
Lee
(Portfolio up 188% MTD...)