Terms of Use

I write about stocks and other investments. I am not a registered investment adviser and I will not and cannot give personalized investment advice. If you wish for personalized investment advice, please consult with someone who is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP). These individuals are qualified to help you; also, find one to whom you pay an hourly fee, to ensure that your adviser has no conflicts of interest. To find a CFP near you, visit the CFP Board’s website.

When I write about a stock that I beneficially own, I will attempt to disclose that fact at the end of an article in which I mention that stock, unless I own the stock in a hedge fund, mutual account, managed account or other account that I do not control. Because this is a day-trading blog I may close or re-open a position in a stock without timely notification of the readers of this blog. This blog is for informational purposes only and you should not consider anything I write to be investment advice.

I will use my best efforts to disclose any conflicts of interest of which I am aware with regard to stocks, companies, or products about which I write.

I have never been sanctioned for violations of securities laws, and I have never been barred from the securities industry or convicted of any felony or misdemeanor. However, I make no guarantees about the accuracy of my statements and I will not necessarily update statements that later turn out to be false. Because I aim for accuracy, I encourage anyone who finds errors to use the contact form to point them out to me.

I provide the material on this site for informational purposes only. No mention of a particular security constitutes a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold that or any other security, nor does it mean that any particular security, portfolio of securities, transaction or investment strategy is suitable for any specific person. I cannot and do not assess, verify or guarantee the adequacy, accuracy or completeness of any information, the suitability or profitability of any particular investment or methodology, or the potential value of any investment or informational source. Site users bear sole responsibility for their own investment research and decisions. Anything written on this website is solely the opinion of the author unless it is clearly and expressly stated as fact.

Category labels are not necessarily correct descriptions of articles in those categories.

Twitter

I post comments about stocks on Twitter and those comments may appear on my blog in a sidebar. My disclosure policy and trading policy does not apply to my posts on Twitter or anywhere else on the internet (such as Motley Fool CAPS and Yahoo! Finance message boards), only my blog itself. The only disclosure policy I will follow when making posts on Twitter or websites other than this blog is that I will use best efforts to disclose when I hold a position in a stock.

I will occasionally tweet about stocks I trade. My tweets will often be delayed and thus attempting to trade based on my tweets will likely lead to losses. I discourage anyone from making trades based on my tweets. My tweets are not recommendations to buy or sell a stock. They are for informational and educational purposes only to give my readers a feel for how I trade and to convey my opinion on stocks about which I may write.

Taxes

I may occasionally write about tax issues for traders. I have no training in tax law (or any kind of law) and nothing I saw is to be construed as tax, financial, or legal advice. I recommend The Tax Guide for Traders by Robert Green. After purchasing the book I retained Green’s firm to prepare my taxes and they currently prepare my taxes. I receive no money from the firm for promoting them and the only money I receive from recommending them comes from my Amazon.com affiliate link.

Recommendations and Affiliates

I only recommend products or services that I believe are useful. For some products or services I recommend I am an affiliate and receive a percentage commission based on product / service sales from those clicking my affiliate links. Every product for which I am an affiliate I am also a happy customer and I am an affiliate because I like the service / product. I am an affiliate of InvestorsUnderground (IU) stock chat, for which I receive 50% of a new subscriber’s first month’s payment and 25% on an ongoing basis. I have subscribed to IU since its inception at the beginning of 2009 and I pay the standard rate of membership for charter members, which is currently $99/quarter (I also was a member of the predecessor chat, Green on the Screen, for 6 months starting in summer 2008). I am an affiliate of SpeedTrader; I do not personally use them but they have the lowest minimum account size of any direct access broker with which I am familiar and I do believe they are worth a look. I am a happy customer of Amazon.com and all my links for books use my affiliate link. I am an affiliate of Timothy Sykes. Read on for more information on my relationship with Timothy Sykes. In the future, I may enter into additional financial arrangements for recommendations or affiliations. I will attempt to keep you informed of the details of any such arrangements.

My Relationship with Timothy Sykes

I am an affiliate of Timothy Sykes, for which I receive 25% of the purchase price of any product ordered using my link. I am a TimAlert lifetime member (for which I paid $2,000) and a subscriber to PennyStocking Silver; I have also purchased Sykes’ DVDs Pennystocking 1 & 2 and Sykes' Learning Level 2 DVD. I received TimRaw as part of the 2008 Las Vegas seminar I paid for and attended; I received TimTactics and TimFundamentals Part Deux as part of the 2009 Las Vegas seminar package that I paid for and attended. At both of Sykes' seminars I attended he bought a round or drinks for me and everyone else at the post-seminar party. At the 2009 Vegas seminar I also purchased $250 ($300 with tip) worth of drinks for everyone (pursuant to the promise on my blog of buying a round). I moderate Tim Sykes' TimAlerts stock chatroom, for which I am paid based on the number of people in chat. I collaborated with Tim Sykes on the Read SEC Filings DVD published by Tim's company, Bullship Press, and I will receive royalties on every sale. I also subscribe, via Covestor Investment Management, to Tim Sykes' trading strategy. I currently have a $9,800 account at CV.IM, all of which is currently auto-traded based on Sykes' trades. I do not disclose positions in that account because I have no control over the account and I am not notified in a timely manner of trades in the account. I will attempt to keep you informed of any changed or additional aspects of my relationship with Timothy Sykes in the future.

Comment Policy

Ownership of and responsibility of the comments remains with those who post the comments. I am not responsible for the statements of those who leave comments. I reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason whatsoever, including but not limited to the reasons that the comment(s) in question are spam, defamation or obscene.

Privacy Policy

I use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit this website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.

* Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on this site. * Google’s use of the DART cookie enables it and its partners to serve ads to my users based on their visit to my sites and/or other sites on the Internet. * Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.

Email Privacy Policy

Users’ email addresses will never be sold to anyone, ever, whether given to me by signing up for my email list or by leaving a comment.

Privacy Limitations

The only personal information I currently collect consists of email addresses, IP addresses, and information related to user comments and emails. I may disclose users’ email addresses, IP addresses, comments, emails, or any other information regarding users, pursuant to subpoenas, court orders, or other requests (including criminal and civil matters) if I have a good faith belief that the response is required by law. This may include respecting requests from jurisdictions outside of the United States where I have a good faith belief that the response is required by law under the local laws in that jurisdiction, apply to users from that jurisdiction, and are consistent with generally accepted international standards. I may also share information when I have a good faith belief it is necessary (a) to prevent fraud or other illegal activity, (b) to prevent imminent bodily harm, (c) to comply with these Terms of Use, (d) to respond to claims that any information published on this website violates the rights of third parties, or (e) to protect the interests of my users or others. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, courts or other government entities.