Alpha Wolf Capital

I have had a few people asking what my investment strategy is. That is a fair question. I  think I started out like most people and I bought stocks that I felt were undervalued,or that I got a "HOT TIP" on and held them for sometimes years until they made me some money or they went belly up. One of the hardest things I think, especially for men because of our ego and pride, is to admit your wrong, cut your losses and get out. At least that's what it was like for me. I was what you would call a "bag holder".

This was back in the day when you had to have a stock broker to make trades. I would have stocks that would take off and I would be on cloud nine. Then their earnings report would come out or some macro environment event would take place and I would give all or most of my profits back or worse lose money. In the dot com crash I learned a very valuable lesson >No One cares more about your money than you. Not your stock broker or the analysts or the firms they work for.

The market is the biggest casino in the world. People don't like to call it gambling they like to refer to it as investing. For a select few this is true and there are those that are lucky enough to have invested in the Walmarts, Microsofts, Google, and Apples of the world when they were very cheap and held them to make millions over the years. I myself had some incredible wins with stocks like Marvel entertainment which was bought by Disney and Sirius satellite Radio when it was trading for .35 cents a share and MPEL when it was just over 3 bucks.. I would do hundreds of hours of research into companies, study their management team, their product or service, their balance sheet, I would read every article I could find about the company. I would watch Cramer and CNBC and look at analyst reports. What was funny is that Cramer and many analysts smoked my stocks (MPEL,MARVEL, and Sirius) on more than one occasion because they didn't see the value that I saw or maybe they did but they wanted to be able to buy the shares cheaper. Nothing sucked more than to have someone call in to Cramer on the lightening round about a stock I owned and have him hit the SELL, SELL,SELL button. I always had a  very painful day following that event.

It made me question my own research, good earnings reports would come out or some other piece of what should be considered good news and my stocks would tank. I just didn't get it. I read hundreds of books, subscribed to Barrons,Investors Business daily, The Wallstreet Journal, I signed up for Vector Vest. Went to stock trading seminars where the real intent was just to sell you on taking courses. Courses that cost more for 7 days than it would cost you to take 6 months of schooling at Harvard.

I could never see myself buying and trading a stock if I hadn't done all my homework on the company. If I didn't know what they did, where they were located, who ran the company, what their debt was and their cash flow, their earnings if they had any.

Then Twitter and Stocktwits happened. I watched people trading stocks lightening fast and making some pretty darn good money doing it. One person in particular caught my eye and I started following him and a few others that he was associated with. It opened up a whole new world for me. I joined his chat room.

 I personally watched him make an obscene amount of money on one stock in about 4 hours. He made money on the way up and then turned around and shorted it and made money on the way down. I was impressed and amazed when after he finished trading it he asked the room. "Hey does anyone know what that company does?" I was floored and I had to learn what he was doing  and how this could even be possible..
So I took a course from him that he offers and I learned that there are specific chart patterns and setups that can provide very explosive moves you can trade in very short periods of time. That the overall market moves in cycles and depending on what cycle its in can help determine what type of trade you should  take. Whether you can feel comfortable taking swing trades or if you should just take scalps and day trades and be completely in cash by the end of day. I have always had a passion for stocks and looking at charts so this wasn't completely foreign to me. Now I have the tools to make a living doing what I love.

This is a very long answer to a simple question.  The answer is, I still have some long term hold companies that I believe in and that I have researched and I hold those positions mainly in my IRA. Then in my cash trading account I take some short term swing trades only if the market is very strong and I also take scalp trades where I am in and out in 10 minutes or a few hours.

 Now I sleep better at night knowing that I won't wake up to a bad PR or Cramer hitting the SELL,SELL,SELL button and have my stock down 20 percent the following day. Not all my trades work however the key is to be diciplined enough to get out quick and take a small loss when you are wrong and when you are right take profits early and let some ride.
The intent behind the blog is just to share some ideas of stocks I like> I am doing the homework anyway so why not post what I like and maybe get some feedback from other stock junkies.