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.

I bought a small amount of GU @ $2.73 as I like the chart and I like that it’s passing both it’s 25 & 10 day SMA today.

Since I only bought a small amount this one will probably really take off. That’s how it’s worked in the past. Getting superstitious?

I need to revise my strategy. What I’d like to do is come up with some competing strategies and then test them out in real world situations with less money invested. With SogoTrade I still have some free trade time left so I can trade with small amounts without worrying about the commissions eating up any profits.

I’ve come up with three basic strategies, “A” being the one I have been using and then “B” and “C” being two new ones.  These are their current screen results (as of about 2:30 PM.)

Strategy A
(based on 10 day SMA)

SRS $22.50
DUG $19.65
FXP $16.15
CBI $11.51
GRM $3.10
GU $2.69
GBM $1.43

Strategy B
(based on 25 day SMA)

WAL $6.46
GU $2.69
GM $1.64
EMKR $1.27

Strategy C
(based on 5 day SMA)

SRS $22.50
DUG $19.65
FXP $16.15
CBI $11.51
WAL $6.44
GRM $3.10
NGD $2.38
DNN $1.92

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Some of these stocks are showing up on more than one which means they are crossing multiple moving averages at once. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a good idea to look at all three and see if any stock jumps out at me?

Maybe the real key is being more selective (based on chart patterns) of which stocks I buy into rather than what screener I’m using? In other words perhaps the real key is screening my screener?

Maybe I should try something entirely different? Instead of looking for stocks bouncing off lows (like I have been doing) maybe I should take a more traditional approach of looking at stocks making new highs?

I just bought DUG @ $19.61 and I’m already starting to regret it. I’m just pulling the trigger way too quickly on stock picks. I need some discipline.

I should just stick with the picks from TIM ALERTS until I really find some strategy of my own that I feel confident with.

MTW fell through the floor this morning and I had to get rid of it. I sold it at $6 for an 8% loss but it was really a lot more than that because I bought the stock on margin.

I’m reconsidering my use of margin right now. This makes it way too easy to lose huge sums of money. Just an 8% loss wipes out about 20% of my account? Sure it works the other way too. Perhaps if I had more trust in what I was doing it would make sense.