Virus fear - and greed - grips the market.

Virus fear - and greed - grips the market. Nothing like a bit of fear to send people racing for the exits - or those who figure fear just means buying the fear when others are selling it. Bloody fear! Bloody greed! Bloody humans! Right now traders seem not to know whether to discount it or believe is is a zombie apocolypse. The problem seems to be that a lot of China is shut down and that will have a knock on effect for supplies as China makes so much stuff. I suspect by the summer we will all be saying "Cono.. what?" So for shares that are affected the probability is buying on the fear might pay off. Or else I guess you can wait and see what happens. As you can imagine over the years I've been through all kinds of fearful things and we all survive usually. The only thing that has ever been really scary is the near bank collapse in 2008. Compared to that, this virus does't compete at all! The markets seem ok about it one day and scared sh1tless the next but any share that might have anything to do with China at all seems to be marked down. For now, I'm going to carry on as normal and assume things will calm down sooner or later. But for a while at least expect a lot of volatility as the latest virus news emerges. As usual quite a few trades and potential trades to be showed up at the seminar. These events keep me going for ideas for a long time! I actually have to do some research work which now as a lazy fat cat I stopped doing at home! If you'd like to come to the March 9th seminar email me at robbiethetrader@aol.com with "March seminar interested" There is a big early bird discount. There was a decent number, of course some will work out and some won't as is thus with trades. I can't cover them all here but here are one or two at least. I bought some Imimobile (LON:IMO) live at the seminar. This is a clouds communications and software company whose shares are on the rise. There is decent growth here and it's recently taken on some debt (not too big) after buying 3C Interactive for $43m. Next trading statement is due early April - be interesting to see how the acquisition has been bedding in. This company seems well managed and in a good place, if it carries on rising before the next statement I'll probably average up. As I said at the seminar it is always hard buying a company on the way up as there is "fear of missing out" when the price was lower. I've bought some FDM. Another company definitely on the up, I think this one came up at the last follow up seminar. This is a very decent FTSE 250 company valued just over £1bln. It also pays a nice dividend and has a cash pile of £37m and no debt. This I like! If forecasts are right profits should continue to improve, and if it can keep above the usual tricky whole number level, it could motor up another 100p easily enough. It's an interesting business - it recruits and trains what it calls "mounties" - ie business consultants and bases them at client sites. Could be some further nice upside. But it can be volatile so a stop is tricky. Rank is an awful name for a share. "I just bought a share. It's rank..." Taking that aside I always thought this was a fairly boring old fashioned business taking money off idiots playing bingo. But we had a look at it at the seminar and it really is decent! It's just predicted a sharp rise in revenue after a very nice statement. It reckons it is transforming itself and says operating profit grew by 117%. Why the excitement? Well it's the online that really is going well rather than bingo halls. While bingo is flat, its buy of gaming group Stride looks like it will pay off. There is some debt but strong cash flow led to a not too bad underlying net debt of £59m, With profits of £120m ish expected this doesn't look a rank share at all. I have bought some more Concurrent Technology (LON:CNC). Already up nicely on the first buy I was waiting for weakness to buy some more. We had a look at the seminar but level 2 showed us it was more likely to go down and I suggested a much better price another time would come up. And it did this week and I bought some more on price weakness (probably profit takers). I covered this one last time but it looks good with a new "cherry on the top" potential. It has announced a move into AI - artificial intelligence with a new product - an AI accelerator board. CNC hopes this new product will be used in this early stage of AI. Who knows yet but it makes me feel like hanging onto these shares long-term - it its AI products start to develop then surely there must be potential here for share price leap in the future. And in the meantime, it isn't priced in at all yet so a win win! My shorts have gone so well, I'm actively looking for new ones and Pets At Home (Pets) looks like a decent short. (betting that the share price falls) It's done pretty well to be fair - BUT it now rates very highly for what is essentially a retailer. A pe of 20 for such a company is unusual and be surprised if the market doesn't de-rate Pets for a bit - I'd have thought a move back to the 270p area is nearer the mark and that is what I am after. But, as with all shorts, if it keeps going up I'll take a small loss as shares can carry on up regardless. I have cashed out of XPP, the trades made recently and the very long-term position which I've held for a few years. It has just sat there for nearly ever gradually going up. It has been a marvellous trade from about a quid to over 30 quid. Anyhow, for the website it is a lovely bank of £57,362. There may be more upside but the upside has been so good for all trades sometimes it is time to cash in.  I've cashed out the last of the Helios for profit of £729. It seems to hit a brick wall at 150 ish. Interesting after the seminar the most comments were "If there is one thing I definitely learned is, sell a loser quickly". Which is quite right. One example is a terrible pick I made to buy Fin.  A red flag announcement was made (to be fair it was out of the blue) and the share started to tank. Any stop loss would have got you out. Price you get depends on the broker or the sb firm. SB firms usually right away. They didn't get me out rightway and the price slipped 10 points but still better than staying in and a loss of £235 for me. That loss would be nearer £700 if I had stayed with it. It was high risk so kind of serves me right.  Although it is a bit annoying as I so nearly took a decent profit on it a day or two previously. A profit of £72 on Zyt. This one soared up really well. However, it then started to come back more and more and when it got close to my buy in price level 2 was really poor (and the other supply and demand trick I use at seminars) so I quit. This is where L2 and the other thing really pay off when you aren't sure whether to sell or not. Especially when you are still in a profit on something that looks like it is going to dip into a loss. Once it gets into a loss psychologically it becomes harder to sell (crystallise a mistake). The one short that hasn't gone well is Train - in fact it has gone right off the rails. When short it is pointless holding against a trend whatever you think so exited for a loss of £690 and £90  before it really came off the buffers. I may try and short again soon. ITV is struggling to go any higher for now so sold half for a website profit of £1,530. All of which makes a profit banked for the site this time of £58,660. Elsewhere recent buy Draper Esprit has already hit target and was mulling taking profits will probably move stop closer to price just in case it runs up further. Some very big rises for Avon Rubber (after all they do supply masks!), Team 17 and Codemasters. And Gan has been terrific - looks like it is going to get a listing in the USA which could help push the share price up even more. Generally the portfolio continues well despite the virus but perhaps a little profit taking here and there might be necessary soon. Let's see how it all plays out. In fact if you use stops tightening a bit on the shares making profit might be a wise move for current conditions.