Another Endorsement for Stock Ticker RICK

And a happy new year to my brother Doug. Keep up the stock shit that I have zero clue as to what's going on. Maybe I'll start up Slick's Gardening Tips.

#1. Treat your earthworms with live and respect.

That's love.

Happy New Year to you Slick!

Hopefully we get more squawking from tittyfuck and RickyBoy this year. Doing of the opposite what their take is has proven very lucrative since they started making prognostications back in 2009.

Obviously they will let anyone post in Seeking Alpha. This wunderkind actually called RICK a "recession-proof sin stock." I guess he missed the last recession, when RICK lost over 85% of its value for the year-ending 2008. In fact, to this day anyone who bought it at early 2008 prices have yet to come anywhere close to recouping their investment.

I guess that this guy won't be working in the research department at Goldman anytime soon, LOL.

But keep the faith Dougster. Your most recent purchase of 1000 shares at 11.9 is only down about 2% now. With a stock this volatile, you are just one bullshit rumor away from being to sell it to some suckers for a profit. ;)

RickyBoy: " I guess that this guy won't be working in the research department at Goldman anytime soon, LOL."

Thus spoke RickyBoyDugan who called it a terrible buy at $8.50 and told me to get out the entire time it climbed to $12.50. Then, rather than just admit he was wrong (something his titanic ego is incapable of) he just chalked it all up to a giant conspiracy theory.

Think the guy who wrote the article has a bit better analytic powers than RickyBoy (not that that is hard to do)!

And also, let it be known, that I have a challenge to RickyBoy to name many any stock that will outperform RICK this year. I am giving him the entire market to choose from, and he is unable to put it down in writing and name a single one. Run, RickyBoy, run!

Slick's Botanical's are selling. Better buy your stock now before I get bought by Monsanto.

LOL! Monsanto is the devil!

@Doug-Yes indeed. I've seen Monsanto potatoes first hand. Their scientists are top notch and, for the most part, good people. It's the end product that's evil as evil can be.

I can go on and on against Monsanto but what would it do? My folks and I have seeds, trees, and a small colony of Mason Bees. We'll do our best, not being preppers but being smart.

My disabled Dad just made a pretty penny on some stock. I have no idea of what it was. He's a business man, then a gardener. I'm a a gardener, then a business man.

Fraudster posted: "Thus spoke RickyBoyDugan who called it a terrible buy at $8.50 and told me to get out the entire time it climbed to $12.50. Then, rather than just admit he was wrong (something his titanic ego is incapable of) he just chalked it all up to a giant conspiracy theory."

It's not my ego talking. The numbers don't lie. This company has some real debt problems that aren't going away anytime soon. It also has a management team more concerned with flash than shareholder value. I won't pretend to understand why purchase volumes spiked in the face of no real data improvement and ever worse lending terms, but as a portfolio position this stock is a doggie.

Enjoy the ride back down though. ;)

Ruff ruff!

Oh, and you do realize that this stock peaked at almost $27 six years ago, right? I wonder how anyone who bought this thing in late 2007 or the first half of 2008 feels today. Probably a bit sore in the ass. ;)

But oh yeah, line right up. Fresh suckers are needed. :)

So RickyBoy let me see if I have this right. It is a complete garbage stock, yet you are unable to commit to naming a single stock you think will outperform it this year?

As for why did it rally on such volume? Look at the last earnings report. Market anticipated it as the market is good at anticipating things like that. Which is why you should put your titanic ego to side and listen to the market on this one. Hmmm... Let's see, RickyBoy's opinion, or the market's... Sorry RickyBoy, I'm gonna have to just dismiss your silly conspiracy theories and continue to listen to the market instead.

The volume started weeks before the earnings report and, to my knowledge, there was nothing reported on an 8-k which gave any indication of increased profitability. Not that the financials provided any real comfort - all they did was move more into the revenue line at the continued expense of the debt line on their balance sheet.

And those "silly" theories are obviously shared by everyone who continues to bend them over the table just to lend them a few million.

But like I said, keep on buying.

"How much for that doggie in the window. Ruff! Ruff!"

Funny stuff

I love it when Doug and Rick go back and forth without bullshit. Keep it real.

RickyBoy - you reckon more than the amount that was lent flowed into the stock since August? Better listen to the bigger money.

And it's funny you keep squawking about how bad the stock is and it just keeps rallying. And you are completely unwilling to name a single stock you think will outpeform it next year - this despite how bad you say it is and I am giving you the entire market to choose from. Heck, I'll even let you PM txtittyfan for some advice making your pick!

Oh, but I AM listening to the "bigger money." But to clear up your obvious confusion, the bigger money are not the retail schmucks who are buying into the stock at 11.90 and then hanging on for dear life. Rather, they are the guys who pony up $3mm in one shot and then demand 9% interest PLUS conversion rights and warrants. ;)

But good try with the straw man "pick a better stock." Even if I picked another bad stock, it wouldn't make RICK any better, it would just mean that we both picked dogshit stocks.

It keeps rallying - lol. Sure it does, when a few million in market cap is enough to move the needle. If someone tried to dump a serious piece today, you can bet that $11 per share would be a distant memory. It is a volatile micro-cap stock.

Ruff baby!

I wonder if there were people like you around here touting this thing when it was trading over $20. I bet whoever took that advice is still wondering wtf happened. ;)

In the short term it's extremely high risk with moderate rewards assuming people continue to buy despite it's numerous flaws.

Long term I agree with Dugan, it's a dog.

Nothing about this stock is genius.

Anyone who trades as frequently and profitably as dugly claims he does should be able to realize this. Clearly dugly is either obsessed or desperate for people to buy into RICK. I noticed an article on the same website from a few weeks ago pointing out the precarious deft situation and the idiocy of the CEO. Interesting he opted not to post that one. But then again if the stock dropped to $4 next week I'd expect dugly to announce he knew it was coming all along and shorted it.

jestie: "Clearly dugly is either obsessed or desperate for people to buy into RICK."

After rallying from mid $8's to mid $11's in just about six months there does not seem to be any shortage of buyers. Correction do occur, but on much lower volume.

jestie: "I noticed an article on the same website from a few weeks ago pointing out the precarious deft situation and the idiocy of the CEO. Interesting he opted not to post that one."

I've posted negative links regarding the stock as well as positive ones. Might want to check the history before making "oooops" claims. :-)

jestie: "But then again if the stock dropped to $4 next week I'd expect dugly to announce he knew it was coming all along and shorted it. "

Again, check the archives. You are making a claim you wish was true, but I have always announced my trades beforehand on this one, so people can verify how things worked out.

I was actually getting worried there weren't be enough pessimism to fuel this stock going higher and might stall out, but with no shortgage of cynicism, I think it will be a very good year.


As for your "limited upside" versus huge risk. Think you got it backwards. The debt situation and other troubles have been known forever, it was going to breakdown would have done so already. As for how big, the upside is. Well, I have a number in mind which is much higher than the $15 which the article I linked gave as a conservative target. I doubt it will happen in one year, might take three, but I think this thing can easily double. So I think maybe $1 downside risk from here, since there are buyers eager to get in on dips, and the board is authorized to buyback stock to hold it up, and more another $11 upside. Maybe if there was a totally devastating headline back into the mid-$8's at which point I would still be up overall, but $3 risk versus $11 potential reward... I like it!

RickyBoy: " But to clear up your obvious confusion, the bigger money are not the retail schmucks who are buying into the stock at 11.90 and then hanging on for dear life. Rather, they are the guys who pony up $3mm in one shot and then demand 9% interest PLUS conversion rights and warrants. ;)"

Um, got some bad news for you, if you look at the volume over the rise, it should be clear that much more $3 million has flowed into the stock. That's what I meant when I say listen to the even bigger money than the lenders.

RickyBoy: "But good try with the straw man 'pick a better stock.' Even if I picked another bad stock, it wouldn't make RICK any better, it would just mean that we both picked dogshit stocks."

Huh??? This is definitely one of the most bizarre things you've ever said. You can only pick a better than RICK by picking a bad one? Dude, just pick a good one. Not sure how you got yourself all confused there. Anything in the whole market, RickyBoy. Consult txtittyfan or jester214 if you like.

RickyBoy: "If someone tried to dump a serious piece today, you can bet that $11 per share would be a distant memory."

And the fact that has not happened ought to tell you something, right? If a few million moves changes hands, it will be in, as time since August when it was mid-$8s and you called it terrible has demonstrated.

Keep clinging to your fantasy that it will breakdown someday even despite the market giving absolutely no evidence to back this.

A "rally" followed by 4 months of up and (mostly) down that saw it effectively rise 0. Perhaps I wasn't clear what I don't see is you posting new discussions highlighting the obvious and massive problems with this company. But you find some asshat saying it's a good buy and you run to post it so you can tell everybody how wrong Dugan is. If it bottomed out tomorrow you'd shut up until the next time it went up a couple bucks and then you'd be back to shouting how great it is. I guess telling some guy on a strip club forum that he was "wrong" about a stock is the highlight of your life...

I see nothing to justify even a $4 upside let alone an $11, but when you toss out "might take 3" anything could happen (hell you could stop living on a internet strip club forum). The risk is that it drops and/or goes back to being stagnant for multiple years as its done before. That's a long time to have cash tied up on this shit company where a lawsuit could send it crashing or the idiot in charge could disappear with the company plane.

This is all academic though since I 100% doubt you have 10 shares of RICK let alone 1000.

@jestie: Actually I'm up to 3500 shares in RICK. Up to about 10% of my total portfolio now. RickyBoy mentioned my purchase of 1000 shares around $11.90 but conveniently forgot 2500 shares I bought around $10.40:

https://www.tuscl.net/postread.php?PID=2…

The funniest thing is that RICK had slipped off my radar around then, due to the consolidation you mention, and it was only because RickyBoy started squawking about it that I decided to get back in, figuring if he was confident enough to express how bearish he was, it was probably near a local bottom. Turned out to be exactly what happened. :-) I feel so fortunate that we have great contrarian indicators like him, tittyfan around here. Looks like you are looking to join that crowd.

And you will also notice that in the same thread I posted a link to a negative piece on RICK. Why do I post links to more positive pieces than negative ones? Well because more positive ones than negative ones are showing up lately (a phenomena that started slightly before the big rally last August).

There is tons of skepticism about the stock but many are starting to realize the potential. The last quarter's results should have made that obvious with even half a clue.

And, yes, jestie, often after stocks have big runs they can go sideways for quite a while. It's known as consolidation. Get out of the limelight. The reason is quite simple. The buyers don't want to buy when everyone else is do so, and will be up'ing there asks. Buyers would rather take the market by surprise. In this case, the last quarter was so good, they might even wait for a bad headline to start buying. Then RickyBoy will scream it's obvious manipulation and will have idea why people would buy on bad news.

jestie: " I see nothing to justify even a $4 upside let alone an $11"

Um, over 20% growth on projected EPS of 1.7 with a current stock price around $11.60. Hmmmm... Can't see anything, huh? Will I don't expect you to have much market experience yet, give that, on your janitor salary most you could afford of this might be 100 shares. :-)

jestie: " I guess telling some guy on a strip club forum that he was 'wrong' about a stock is the highlight of your life..."

Nah, my returns in the market last year (>100%). But yes, since RickyBoy has 10 persons worth of egos crammed into his one puny little head, making fun of how poor he is at analyzing stocks is great fun. It's just like The System where he thought he was such a genius and so arrogant about it, and then got it all wrong. Great, fun, but the market gains this year were definitely the highlight of 2013 for me IRL.


jestie: "but when you toss out 'might take 3'"

Make no mistake, I think RICK will have a great year. Why I am willing to put it up against any stock that him or tittyfuck can pick. I just not saying I am sure it will double next year. But it will beat anything that he, or tittyfuck can pick. How about you? You seem to hate the stock. Want to stick your neck and name one specific stock you think will beat it? (Kind of doubt. Not what passive aggressive like yourself do. They just hide under their rocks and criticism, but don't take any risks themselves by make a statement others could criticism them for. Maybe by pointing out this pattern of yours though, I can corner you into trying to name something better. Doubt it! But possible.)

@jestie: And since you accuse me of being lopsided, here is a very recent thread where I point of the risks with this stock

https://www.tuscl.net/postread.php?PID=2…

I mention I am not sure the general market can maintain the momentum it did this year, and I also mention risk of them losing one of the law suits against them.

I been very balanced overall in my presentation of the strengths and weakness of this stock. My initial inclination was just to avoid it. I am, however, not fanatic so I changed my mind of further investigation. I am also not reverent to rickyboy and tittyfuck like you are.

The problem, then, for you, is not that I am unbalanced but, rather, that I reached a different conclusion when you, RickyBoy, and tittyfuck were all in unison, and it despite it being so "obvious" to you guys that I was wrong, the market voted that I was right. So beat RickyBoy and tittyfuck quite handily even on what they consider to be their home turf. Quite a slam dunk! Love it!

Keep this shit rolling...

I can't decide which is funnier - the stock moves up about 30% in six months after they call it garbage, say I am an idiot for buying it, and they tell me to sell throughout the entire move, yet they claim I am the one who doesn't know what I am doing.

Even between the three of them, and given all the stocks in the market to choose from they are unable to commit to a single one that I am sticking my neck out by picking. That's right, according to them, I have no idea what I am doing, but still three them can't come up with the name of a single stock they think will do better than a guy who they say doesn't know what he is doing. Now, if me having all three of them on the run doesn't show fear on their parts, no idea what would. :-)

" unable to commit to a single one that I am sticking my neck out by picking."

should read

" unable to commit to a single one that [will beat the one that] I am sticking my neck out by picking."

@Dougster,

I will accept your challenge at picking a stock for 2014. I will even be so bold as to mention two different stocks.

During the week of Feb 3 to Feb 7 I put on two hefty positions:

BAM.A (TSE) - Brookfield Asset Management (because of share structure trades only on TSE.)

MFC (TSE) - Manulife Financial (also trades on NYSE under the same symbol but I made my purchase on TSE using Canadian dollars.)

These are not trading vehicles for me. Barring some catastrophic event for one of these companies these two positions will be multi-year holds. My hope is that my estate will be dealing with a huge capital gain in these two companies upon my death.. These two companies are solid dividend payers and my expectation is that there will be aggressive increases in the divvy over the next few years, particularly from MFC.

My only comment about RICK is that it is an untradeable security for me after learning the company's fundamentals from reading the 2009 annual and for the market technicals that make it ineligible for me.

I should add that my position in BAM.A has an average cost of C$40.72 and that in MFC is C$20.33.

Challenge wasn't to you, art. I'm sure you can do it. I also have ones I myself like better. Challenge was to RickyBoy, txtittyfan, and jester214 because I don't think they can pick anything better.

Let's say for fun I were to pick something against you though, art. Would we factor likely depreciation of the CAD versus the USD into your pick?

How about just a simple percentage gain in whatever currency is made for the purchase? Buy in CAD, sell in CAD (or take the year end close). Buy in USD, sell in USD (or take the year end close). Shouldn't that eliminate any currency fluctuation influence? The percentage gain or loss would be a fair measure of our respective abilities as stockpickers in whatever market we choose.

Since I didn't respond until 2 weeks after my purchases feel free to take the same liberties as I did. (I was away from tuscl for those 2 weeks and just happened on this old thread today while killing time waiting for tests in a medical lab.)

I also think that any dividend income should be excluded from the calculation of gain or loss.

I chose 2 dividend payers. You may choose something that pays no divvys so pure capital gain or loss should be the criterion.

Ok, my pick is SCHW. I like it as a rising interest rate play since they have a ton of cash. I also like it as a recovery play. As the US economy improves I expect people to trade more. This will also mean good margin interest for SCHW. Pick number two, is along the same lines, but more aggressive: IBKR.

Closing prices today - SCHW 25.57 and IBKR 21.55

Oh... I see you are giving me some time to pick a price, I'll just go with the open tomorrow to make it fair.

I think the market is in a bit if trouble right now, so giving me two weeks to choose an entry isn't fair.

(I owned some SCHW until yesterday but liquidated because I want to sit out this correction. IBKR I have no idea when it will start rallying again.)

Ok, dividends included but not currencies. Game on!

Do you want me to take tomorrow's TSE open as my base price? I think that I should do that. BAM.A has had close to a 10% gain from my purchase price. MFC is only pennies above my purchase price. I would also take tomorrow as record date for divvy payments from my 2 positions (if it makes any difference).

I think that should make for total fairness for this challenge. OK with you?

BAM.A is the follow-on of a grand old Canadian company. It is now a holding company for some very impressive assets - power generation, real estate, various infracture plays. MFC is a a large insurance company (formerly Manufacturers' Life). Assets in Canada, USA, and a growing presence in China and south-east Asia. The company had a near-death moment a few years ago but new management has the company back on a strong growth business plan. (I wish I had pulled the trigger on MFC at C$8/C$9 when I had the chance!)

Now, I must go look at SCHW and IBKR. I don't have a clue about those two guys, don't even recognize the symbol.

Opening prices tomorrow sounds good.

If anyone else wants in - please do so before market open tomorrow.

I am a dolt. I should have been able to figure out that SCHW was Charles Schwab.
I know nothing about Interactive Brokers Group (IBKR).

Gutsy move.....putting all your eggs in the same industry basket. My 2 choices are much more different from each other than yours.

Good luck! I will be holding my 2 positions at year end but there is no obligation for either of us necessarily to abide with that. Tomorrow's open vs. year end close will be the data points for determining winner and loser for this challenge now that we have made public our choices in this challenge.

SCHW has been good to me. IBKR I just started looking at, but am sure will, rightfully, be more volatile. Smaller cap - lower margins, smaller primary target market. I'm going with it because it is very similar to my own broker, so I have some first hand knowledge of the space. Can't enter my own broker though since it is a private company.

I agree with your proposed rules!

Here's the opening prices from yesterday:

SCHW: 25.59
IBKR: 21.54

MFC: 21.10
BAM.A: 44.52 (approx.)

Correct?

I think you gave me an extra 7 cents on BAM.A.......I had that one at 44.45 at the open.

Otherwise, I am in complete agreement.

I wasn't really paying attention yesterday......wrapped up in watching Olympics on TV. That hockey game with USA women was just epic.

Bit of a hangover this morning..............BURP!

Ok, 44.45 it is. I couldn't get the exact open on that one, for some reason:

SCHW: 25.59
IBKR: 21.54

MFC: 21.10
BAM.A: 44.45


Should be a good hockey game today USA vs Canada men's. I bet all of Canada will shut down to watch it! And with Sweden in the gold medal game, could be great for you.

There's a good article in the WSJ this morning about how trading is really picking up for the retail brokers (who could have guessed that? :-)) Some are close to record levels of trading activity it says.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10…


You need a subscription to read it, so I guess jester214 is out of luck on his janitor's salary.(Maybe jestie has a relative who gets free access through school and can help him out in the name of improving jestie's education.)

I bought 10,000 ETFC on Friday, but then chickened out and reduced it to 5,000 just before the bell because of risk surrounding the situation in the Ukraine. Typical WSJ pieces will move stocks nicely however, so should be a good boost on Monday's open.

Update:

I currently have a short position of 2000 shares of RICK that I sold right around this price that I am thinking of covering.

Last quarter's earning for RICK were very impressive 0.45/share. Also their board approved an additional $10 million in stock buybacks which should put a floor under the price of the stock. Where exactly they get $10 million cash is a bit of a mystery, though, with all the debt payments they have. Will it get tacked onto further debt at 10% a year? Possibly if they think their stock is undervalued by much more than 10%.

On the downside: Legal risks have risen. They had an unfavorable ruling regarding Texas's pole tax, and minimum wage laws could also hurt them, along with the possibility of losing a decision in NY on back pay if it turns out strippers are entitled to a minimum wage.

The stock is going into a very boring sideways range now. I see three possibilities for this:

a) the plus they have scored exactly balance the new negatives so the stock is fairly priced and waiting on news for its next move
b) big holders are slowly getting out of their position ahead of bad news about to come
c) big holders are slowly getting into positions ahead of good news about to come

I'm going to have to spend some time looking at the tick data to decide which it is. Unless something really disastrous is on the horizon, however, I would think the $10 million in buyback puts a nice floor under the stock, so I am inclined just to cover and go long again and wait.

I'd consider buying if it was around $10 a share based strictly on this chart.
http://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=Rick,

I haven't looked at any other technical data. Is $10 the floor you were talking about? It looks like a floor line on the linked chart.

Their board would have to decide what price they want to do their buybacks at and these things don't get announced, but, I agree, it does look from technical analysis like $10.20 is providing support. One of the reasons I'm not eager to stay in the short.

It's not clear if the support is due to their own buybacks or from outside. Again, I'll have to look at the tick data to make a better guess about this.

From Yahoo! finance it looks like insider and institutions are getting out:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/it?s=RICK+Ins…

When I look at the tick data, I don't see anything remarkable. There is no evidence of ATS (off exchange) transactions. One thing that is interesting is that there are a fair number of ticks for 4000 shares which are mostly upticks. I wonder if these are the corporate buybacks?

So what does it mean if institutions and insiders are getting out but the company itself is willing to buyback its own stocks? Probably not good. But bad enough to stick with a short?

I'm not normally one for conspiracy theories, but having the board authorize the company to do buybacks while the board members are offloading their own shares - sounds like a transfer of the company's "cash" to their own pockets. Actually a transfer of their creditors cash to their own pockets.

Also the fact that it couldn't get going on the good earnings last quarter and in spite of the buybacks putting a floor in... Think I'll just keep the short for now.