I bought PRGN @ $5.80 on double margin using over half of my total account’s value. It appears to have resistance at about $6 so I’m hoping it can break through that and give me a huge pop.

Of course I know you’re not supposed to play on “hope” - Timothy Sykes advises to play after it’s already broke through but I haven’t quite got that timing down. I guess I’m still trying to get better entry prices.

I’ve also been considering STI @ $15.10 but I don’t think I’m going to pull the trigger on it. I like the volume pop but it looks too much like it could drop back down considerably as well. Too much risk, especially when on margin.

SLG went as high as $26.47 before sliding back down to the $24.60s region. It went up before the close and I sold it at $25.08 because I think it’ll probably drop tomorrow. The overall trend is still going up and if I was a longer term “investor” I’d probably hold it. But I’m more interested in looking for my “pop” and then getting out when the stock shows weakness. I got my pop today so I’ll be looking for another stock to play tomorrow.

It would have been nice to sell it for the 15% gain I was holding at one point today, but I’ll take a 9% gain in less than one week. Not bad.

This a warning: If someone calls you saying they are trying to collect a debt that you’re not aware of (probably from years ago) tell them to send proof in writing and to never contact you on the phone again.

Then go look up their phone number at 800notes.com where you will likely find complaints from other people about whoever it is trying to run a similar scam on them.

I also recommend going to AnnualCreditReport.com (which is the official government recommended place to get a real free credit report) and attaining a copy of your credit report. Look to see if you really do have outstanding debt on a closed account.

I would not be surprised if you find that the claims they made are complete bunk. In my personal experience I’ve had a “debt collector” (i.e. some scummy “law office”) contact me about a supposed outstanding debt on an old closed credit card, but according to my credit report that card was paid off in full many years ago.

Do not be threatened or scared by them having some of your personal information (like your previous addresses or info about credit cards you used to own.) Sadly this kind of information isn’t that difficult for these scam artists to get ahold of. They use this info to try and bully you into giving up your bank information so they can take your money.

And NEVER give your bank information up to these people without an investigation into who they are. I recommend contacting a lawyer before agreeing to pay any debt collector anything. In my experience most so called “debt collectors” are scam artists.

I’ve personally been contacted by two such scam artists in my life. I don’t know whether I’m on some sort of list or if these kind of debt collection scams are really that common in general.

It’s amazing to me that these “people” (and I use that term loosely) get away with doing this kind of stuff time and time again (click here for an example.) Where are the laws to protect consumers?

At around noon I bought SLG at $23.05 after picking it from quite a few stocks on my screener based on these factors:

(1) It appears to be in a long term bullish trend since early March.

(2) Instead of a gap up and sideways or a gap up and a fall it had been moving up all day.

(3) It appeared to be close to a resistance point at $24 ( it’s high on May 8 ) which I figure if it breaks through ( which it did briefly around 1 PM ) that it could really skyrocket up.

—

All of that being said, this was far from a perfect entry, I was away this morning so I missed an earlier entry point. It probably first appeared on my screener at around at around 10 AM at around $21.50 but it’s movement up through when I bought it (noon) made it look like a more solid pick.

After it peaked for the day at about $24 at around 1 PM it fell a bit and closed at $23.43 which is a modest 1.6% gain on my entry point.

Probably the most disturbing thing to me is that this 10.6% gain day didn’t include a volume pop. In fact the volume was down at 3.9 million compared to the average volume of 5.7 million.

I’ll be looking for a morning pop tomorrow, if it’s not there I may bail pretty quickly.

It’s amazing to me that payday loans are even legal. How is that in a country (the United States of America) where it’s illegal to grow and smoke marijuana on your own property that it’s legal to basically steal from people? And yes I consider payday loans to be a type of thievery known as usury. I find this bewildering. Our legal system is clearly corrupt. (And yes, by the way, I strongly support the legalization of marijuana.)

That’s why I’m writing this warning to anyone even considering getting a payday loan. Don’t do it. There is never a good reason to get a payday loan. There’s nothing that cannot wait.

To get an idea of how insane payday loans are, you should consider that the APR on payday loans is commonly above 300% in the United States. Do you know what that means? If you borrow $500 and you don’t pay it off, then by the end of the year you would owe over $2000.

Even if you pay it off in just two weeks you can pay over $100 in interest! That’s just insane. Don’t do it. Don’t do it! Whatever you need the money for, just wait. It’s not worth getting caught up with these people.