3SOF

I had a suspicion the gap would not hold so sold just after the open $16.79. I entered on Friday when it bounced off the 50dma so it was a quick swing trade. I am glad earnings did not kill me. I was worried we might get a gap down, but the numbers were good. Good luck long-termers, TRAD should be a solid long term play.

If TRAD can earn $0.60 in 2006, using 30 as its forward PE, it will be fully valued at $18.00.

That explained the sell off after the morning gap up today.

Hi,
With the Dow stocks above 11,000 again ( & I hope they keep above & climb ) broker/dealers will be a great play.  TRAD will continue to rise, I believe, 'cause they'll likely be taken out at a premium. 

New money from other places should begin to filter into the stock markets now that big caps are finally showing life again.

good trading to all!

willey

Quote from: shawFund on February 15, 2006, 12:25:11 AM
If TRAD can earn $0.60 in 2006, using 30 as its forward PE, it will be fully valued at $18.00.

That explained the sell off after the morning gap up today.

I partially agree shawFund. I agree the stock came down because investors were already expacting good earnings from the company. But I don't know if an earnings multiple of 30 «fully values» TRAD, since income before taxes growth from the year ago levels was 120%.

The stock may come down some more due to people selling the news, but no doubt TRAD stays on track to be an excellent long term investment. Now that their trading platform has no charge I see more and more people migrating to TRAD (in fact, I'll also open an account with them sometime soon, to test some trading systems).

One  Tradestation average costumer is worth 50 times more than 1 e*Trade or Ameritrade average costumer in terms of daily average trades (well, today I already made 6 trades on the DAX futures, and this is kind of a slow day, so Velocity Futures clients are worth even more than TRAD's clients, I guess  )

I also love the way TRAD presents results, with their monthly business metrics and all.

I think there is a strong possibility the company will continue to beat analyst's forecasts and even its internal forecasts, because as the bull market in equities and commodities hopefully continues, day traders of all kind will flow to the market and they will end at TRAD as the most sophisticated brokerage on the Street. Longer term, if the market is efficient, TRAD will grab more and more market share from its competitors, because it is better and it costs less.

Back to the earnings results, the rise in net margin from 20% to 32% is a very positive development. At the end of the day TRAD is almost a computerized money making machine.

I'll continue holding TRAD for the long term.

fyi:
BUYINS.NET: TradeStation (TRAD) SqueezeTrigger Price Is $9.96. Short Sellers Are Down Approximately $13 Million After Q4 Earnings Beat By $0.03 Per Share.
Tuesday , February 14, 2006 09:53 ET

Feb 14, 2006 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) -- BUYINS.NET, www.buyins.net, announced today that the 2 million shares declared short on TradeStation Group (NASDAQ: TRAD) have a SqueezeTrigger Price of $9.96 per share. TradeStation said it earned $7.3 million, or 16 cents a share in the quarter on revenue of $27.3 million. A year ago, the company earned $3.6 million, or 8 cents a share on revenue of $20.2 million. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial had, on average, expected the company to earn 13 cents a share. The company said its pre-tax margin increased to 38% in the 2005 fourth quarter, as compared to a pre-tax margin of 28% in the 2004 fourth quarter. The firm also gave estimates for its first quarter and full year 2006 results. It projects earnings per share of 13 cents to 15 cents and revenue of $28 to $30 million in the first quarter. For the full year, it expects to earn 54 cents to 65 cents a share, on revenue of $119 million to $130 million. Currently, analysts polled by First Call expect the company to earn 13 cents in the first quarter, and 59 cents for the full year. Daily average revenue trades rose 40% to 48,767 from 34,728. Short sellers are down approximately $14 million as the stock is currently trading near $16.30. To access SqueezeTrigger Prices ahead of short squeezes beginning, visit http://www.buyins.net.

From January 2005 to January 2006, an aggregate amount of 21,189,185 shares of TRAD have been shorted for a total dollar value of $211 million. The TRAD SqueezeTrigger price of $9.96 is the volume weighted average price that all shorts are short in shares of TRAD. Since crossing above the SqueezeTrigger Price, shares of TRAD are up nearly 64%. There is still approximately $33 million worth of potential short covering in shares of TRAD.

&

TRAD: Q4 Results 16c vs 8c; Beats 13c Est; Mixes Guidance
Tuesday , February 14, 2006 08:02 ET

QUARTER RESULTS
TradeStation Group Inc (TRAD) reported Q4 results ended December 2005. Q4 Revenues were $27.27M; +35.24% vs yr-ago; BEATING revenue consensus by +5.38%. Q4 EPS was 16c; +100.00% vs yr-ago; BEATING earnings consensus by +23.08%.

Q4 RESULTS      Reported      Year-Ago     Y/Y Chg      Estimate    SURPRISE
----------  ------------  ------------  ----------  ------------  ----------
Revenues:        $27.27M       $20.17M     +35.24%       $25.88M      +5.38%
----------  ------------  ------------  ----------  ------------  ----------
EPS:                 16c                8c          +100.00%         13c         +23.08%
----------  ------------  ------------  ----------  ------------  ----------

QUARTERLY GUIDANCE:
Company issues Next-Q Revenue guidance ABOVE consensus estimate, expecting: "Q1 revenues to be $28-30M"

Company issues Next-Q EPS guidance IN-LINE with consensus estimate, expecting: "Q1 EPS tobe 13-15c per diluted share"


YEAR-END RESULTS
Co. also reported Year-End results ended December 2005. FY Revenues were $97.00M; +34.22% vs yr-ago; BEATING revenue consensus by +1.02%. FY EPS was 48c; +45.45% vs yr-ago; BEATING earnings consensus by +6.67%.


FY RESULTS      Reported      Year-Ago     Y/Y Chg      Estimate    SURPRISE
----------  ------------  ------------  ----------  ------------  ----------
Revenues:        $97.00M       $72.27M     +34.22%       $96.02M      +1.02%
----------  ------------  ------------  ----------  ------------  ----------
EPS:                 48c           33c     +45.45%           45c      +6.67%
----------  ------------  ------------  ----------  ------------  ----------


ANNUAL GUIDANCE:
Company issues Coming-YR Revenue guidance ABOVE consensus estimate, expecting: "FY-06 revenues to be $119-130M"

Company issues Coming-YR EPS guidance IN-LINE with consensus estimate, expecting: "FY-06 EPS to be 54-65c per diluted share"


ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY:
OUTLOOK: Q1 revenues to be $28-30M; FY-06 revenues to be $119-130M; Q1 EPS tobe 13-15c per diluted share; FY-06 EPS to be 54-65c per diluted share; Q1 income before taxes to be $9.5-11.0M; FY-06 income before taxes to be $40-48M. HIGHLIGHTS: 2005 fourth quarter record net revenues of $27.3 million, record income before income taxes of $10.3 million, record net income of $7.3 million, record net income per share (diluted) of 16 cents, record brokerage accounts of nearly 24,000, and record daily average revenue trades (DARTs) of nearly 49,000. For the 2005 year, the company reported record net revenues of $97.0 million, record income before income taxes of $32.5 million, record net income of $21.1 million, and record net income per share (diluted) of 48 cents.

I checked out the web site and was impressed. I am currently using scottrade, They have a lot more features at a comparable price. I am considering opening an account and giving it a try. Has anyone here used this broker? If so are you happy with there service?

Quote from: jlong on February 17, 2006, 04:59:28 AM
I checked out the web site and was impressed. I am currently using scottrade, They have a lot more features at a comparable price. I am considering opening an account and giving it a try. Has anyone here used this broker? If so are you happy with there service?

I still don't have an account with Tradestation, but I have several friends that do, and they say it is simply the best (some of them are system traders and programmers - so naturally, they love it).

The move you and I are about to make will be made by many more, and this is why TRAD will get more and more market share from its competitors.

Good luck, I'll continue holding TRAD for the long term.

This is good news for TRAD: TradeStation Europe Limited Receives FSA Approval

Although the stock seems fully valued here, I think it will continue to surprise analysts on the upside over the long term, as it takes more and more market share from its competitors.

I'll continue holding TRAD for the long term.

From the chart, it is developing an ascending trendline.

Once it breaks, $20 is not far away. I may take a new position.

Look back to David's previous picks:

Based on today's closing price, what are the winners if we just hold them long term.

Buy-and-Hold winners are:

1. BIO STOCKS: VPHM, NVAX, AVII, HEB, VRTX, LIFC - bird flu hot topic

2. SEMI STOCKS: BTUI, CIEN, ATML, RMBS, KLIC, AVNX, CNXT, LEXR - semi very hot

3. TECH STOCKS: RHAT, NWRE, ADPT, MSPD, FNSR, TWTC, JDSU, RDCM, GLW - tele hot

4. BROKER: ET, TRAD - of course

5. AIRLINE: AMR, MESA - auto parts will be hot in following months

6. OTHERS WITH GOOD EARNINGS: PETS, HOM, AOB, GIGM,

7. GOLD: KGC, GSS, GOLD

Many gained more than 100% in less than one year. The key is to identify the comanies with earning momentum.

For me, I am most 100% in semi and tech stocks and made very few trades last year. My biggest holding is AMD, MXO, RHAT, STX and LEXR.

I hold more than $300k worth of AMD stocks for more than 2 years and still holding because I believe that AMD will continue taking market shares from INTC. Once trend established, it will be hard to reverse.

I took a POSITION on TRAD today. Market is hot, trading will be hot too, the growth will follow. But I do set up a stop loss.


In the table, the last two columns are today's closing price and the % gain if we just hold them up to today.

Nice post Shawfund. This info gives me more confidence in my trading approach.
I really appreciate it. (appl)

uc.

Thanks for the posting, Shawfund.
As a matter of fact, I noticed this too and I've been trying to hold longer than before.
David made such great picks.
I started trading stocks since last June and luckily I joined 3StocksOnFire right after I started.
I think I've done fairly good for the last 8 months as a newbie and I don't think I could've done it without David and other experts like you.
I thank to all of you who made such a great contribution to this web site and hopefull, I'll be able to give some back to you and other people too in the future.
Good job!

Have not posted but TRAD is stock that is usually easy to make money with as it will trade in a channel and then every now and then, as it did today, break below it. The channel support today was 16.40 and having sold half my position at 17.15 the other day (should have sold 100%) I re-entered at 16.40. Well it traded down almost to the next support area of 15.80, where I entered the last time. Now that we are back into the 16.30 area we need to get above 16.60 in order to resume the climb to new highs. However, I am not convinced that we may not first re-test 15.80 area. Anyway, I am confident that we will get back to $17 plus by end of week if no next week, and this time make a charge at the prior high. If I were buying I would enter below 16.20 and ideally at around 15.80-90 area. The only real risk to this is bad overall market I think

Wow, this one is taking a beating...

TRAD along with AMTD and OXPs are all taking beatings - primarily on back of OXPS weaker than expected report. TRAD has been down here before and doubled inthe 14. 80 are twice in the past month and today once again hitting a low of 14.91. As I write this TRAD is hugging $15 and I expect it will go back to 14.80 area. What I am not sure of is if we hold or start to fall lower. That would be bad and I may have to revist my entire streatgy with TRAD if that happens. When it broke below 16.40 the other day it broke out of it upward channel and now we are hoping to hold medium term support at 14.80, but I am afraid we may have to test the 100 day at 14.11. I have made a lot of money with TRAD so I will continue to hold as long as 14.80 holds. If that breaks I am not sure what I will do. Its too bad its below 50 day EM support of 15.48 which it was above this morning before the sell-off started.

Good luck