A few hits

Let's look at some past trades; on this page, we'll only have a few successful ones. The idea is to show that they were all rather obvious signals, available for all to see, but that the market just didn't take into account.

On May 31, 2001 HomeStore.com (ticker HOMS at the time, now MOVE on the NASDAQ) had thirty-five different insiders selling at the same time; talk about rats leaving the ship. Marc entertained the though of seeing the shares lose up to 90% over the next six months. It ended up losing 86%, and a bit later several managers pleaded guilty to accounting fraud.

On June 20, 2000 Marc was intrigued by American Eagle Outfitters. While sales were up 22%, the stock lost 50% just for missing the consensus by three cents. In relative terms, business was looking good compared to competition. We took a 210% profit in six months, while the S&P 500 lost 14%, a whopping 224% alpha in a half year, or 502% annualized.

Just for the fun, let's also mention an incredible company called Vaso Active Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: VAPH), which we played on the short side for $7.39 per share. Imagine a company with $52'000 in sales for the first nine months of 2003, promoted by the same man who pumped Vital Living before the FBI raided it.

We closed this trade at $0.80 six months later for an 89% profit, as the markets went up 2%, for an alpha of 91% in a half year, or 265% annualized.