Getting 6 Mbps for $17.50 from ATT

I called ATT and said my internet is just too slow and I think I'm going to try Comcast. She then transferred me to the retention dept. and I told that rep I'm thinking of going with Comcast cuz they're cheaper. She said ATT don't want to lose me and then looked up her system and lo and hold said they have a promo where I can get the 6 Mbps service at 50% off for next six months for $17.50 and I said done deal. It's only 2.50 more than what I'm paying now for basic 750 kbps. Man, can't wait to stream Netflix movies at 6 Mbps.

You just have to call them and ask. If you don't try you'll never get the discount. Don't be afraid to do this. Many people have done it and got it. They have a whole department (retention) set up just waiting for you to call so that they can give you that great deal. So what are you waiting for, pick up the phone and start saving some money and surf the net at lightning speed. Don't forget to set a reminder to call them in 6 months to get off that deal. Hopefully by then they will have another deal.

Update:
Seems like they will just give you 50% off of your current rate at your current level of service. I went over to a friends house to do this for her because she was unable to pull it off maybe due to her language problem and the rep asked what are you paying currently. I told her $25 and was offered 50% off for 6 months, $12.50 a month.

Jan. 12, 2009

The financials have broken below the bottom of the wedge which portends lower prices.
I'm looking to go long SKF.

Jan. 7, 2009

Today was the first trading day for me due to having to work last two days. By the time I logged on at 8:30 the market was down 160 pts. A quick check showed SKF was performing significantly better than SRS. There was some bad economic news out and I sensed today had a very good chance of big selloff.

First trade at 1 pm (est) SKF 107.08, looked like the market might crack prior low but failed and bailed at 106.50 for a small loss of 0.58 on 100 sh. At that point the dow looks like had support 8820 as it held twice there. At 1:42 the dow was heading down toward the 8820 area with momentum and I bought 100 SKF 107.18, after the dow cracked 8820 I added 100 more 107.59 and the final 100 at 108.08 for an average price of 107.72. I continued to move my stop up and was stopped out 110.21 for +2.49 on 300 shares.

The dow staged a brief rally and when it finally fizzeled and reversed I bought 200 at 109.98 and was stopped out at 111.24 for +1.26.

It was a very fine start in every aspect. I waited for the right entry point and exists weren't too terrible but maybe could've been a little better. I did not over trade, making only 3 traded.

Although the SKF and SRS isn't a perfect mirror image of the market indices it's close enough so that using the movement of the dow or sp500 to time the entry works quite well.

Trading ETFs

I had some success trading ETFs recently. Specifically the double inverse Proshares SRS but SKF and SMN may work just as well in the right situation. The first time was last Monday when the market started sliding right from the open and I bought SRS right away and sold at the close for a 27 point gain. The market had gone up five consecutive days prior on light holiday volume so I was highly expecting a market sell off.

Today the market chopped around all day until 2 pm when it went red and a half hour later the the sell off accelerated. The EOD (End of Day) Massacre was on, again.

This is how I traded SRS:

at 2:38 bought 40 @ 86.43 and when I saw the trend strengthening I added to the trade
20 @ 87.71
20 @ 88.28
20 @ 89.11
20 @ 89.91
20 @ 90.60
20 @ 91.68
20 @ 91.76
20 @ 92.21

for a total of 200 shares which I sold a few minutes later @ 91.74 as I wanted lock in the nice profits. Less than 10 minutes later SRS is making new highs and I bought 50 @ 93.36 as I was thinking there was 35 more minutes before the market closes, plenty of time for more action.
Again I added to the trade
20 @ 94.64
30 @ 95.04
20 @ 95.79
20 @ 96.78
20 @ 98.31

for a total of 160 shares which I sold @ 98.27

Profit on the two trades was 927 before commissions, not bad for a couple of hours work. Sure beats cleaning dirty carpets. What I did wrong was I added too many times in small increments resulting in commission cost of 112, YIKES! In the heat of battle I kinda lost track of how many times I added and as the trend got stronger I got braver as there was no big pull backs like there was earlier in the day. I never planned on trading 200 shares, mistake number one...no plan. Best to add one or maybe two large and be done with it.


Here's some points I've learned about day trading ETFs. Markets generally fall faster than they do going up that's why the double inverse ETFs will produce a bigger bang for you buck. In other words their ADR (average daily range) is very high. How does one decided which one to play? I answered that question today by looking at which of the three, SMN, SRS, SKF, was performing the best. Through out most of the day SRS was ahead of SKF by about 3% and SMN was behind SKF by a few %. So it was pretty easy to pick SRS today. SRS also has a larger ADR than SKF, followed by SMN. At the end of the day today, SRS had gained 24.6%. SKF 15.4 and SMN 7%. Until their ADR changes SRS will be the weapon of choice.

Oct. 31

There are 101 stocks from the short filter so I'll just post the top 30 by largest %gain.

Symbol Last %Chg
FDML 6.08 51.62
ODP 3.12 48.57
OMX 7.07 46.07
IVN 2.96 43.69
LNG 2.68 34.67
NAK 3.45 25.45
WLL 51.4 25.37
MBT 38.79 22.99
LM 20.76 22.7
HTZ 7.01 22.55
CEDC 27.61 19.78
IOC 13.75 19.57
CYCL 3.24 19.56
GPOR 6.99 17.68
DENN 1.8 16.88
TRMA 8.52 16.87
NCMI 7.03 16.01
RSX 18.9 15.6
VIP 14.03 15.57
ZINC 3.51 15.08
TLM 10.24 14.8
TTES 21.79 14.68
FTK 5 14.42
GMXR 36.54 13.83
EBHI 3.3 13.79
CPX 12.23 13.77
EXXI 2 13.64
ARGN 4.03 12.89
ITU 11.5 12.86

Oct. 30

48 shorts for tomorrow list in order by volume. A strong candidate is DIN a carryover from yesterday's filter.

Symbol Last
TGT 40.72
M 11.03
MON 87.93
PCU 13.35
EXPE 12
NIHD 21.6
RDS.B 56.93
FMC 42.1
BYD 5.63
FAST 39.12
SBAC 19.35
CMC 11.33
TV 17.5
BEAV 11.51
MNST 12.45
EGO 4.42
CBB 2.45
OMX 4.84
WMS 23.86
HTZ 5.72
WTSLA 2.79
EQT 32.6
SHLD 61.39
OSK 7.39
LPX 4.17
ASCA 8.17
GBN 1.15
BEBE 7.91
CHH 27.72
SYT 34.77
DBRN 9.47
ABG 3
RTP 175.81
PAL 1.53
CT 6.94
HSNI 7.96
WINN 13.92
SPAR 4.58
B 13.97
BWS 9.15
HIBB 16.64
TGI 44.86
FRPT 2.46
NAK 2.75
CBD 28.67
MTN 31.4
KALU 29.5
WBMD 28.01

Oct. 29

I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

Laugh cuz it's side splitting funny.

Cry cuz if that's the best we can come up with to potentially lead our country we are in deep doodoo.