The market is absolutely nuts. I don't know why I even try to understand it. After three consecutive days of 10-15% gains, I'm now down 22% and dropping. Of course I'm too dumb and/or greedy to have locked in profits when I could have. This morning on my ride into work I was feely quite ducky and was actually thinking about applying to have my Ameritrade account turned into a margin account. After today, there is no way I'm doing that. I don't think I could handle the stress of margin calls. This market is definitely not for the faint of heart. I should let these stocks do their thing and not worry unless huge news comes out, however, I don't believe I'm capable of that at this point.
		
		
	 
Both these stocks are pump and dumper delights. Neither have any earnings, both have had abysmal earnings growth over virtually any period. They're only up because of rumors. Using margin for stocks like these is a recipe for disaster. If you're down 22% in a day using your own cash, multiply that by 2 and you'd feel the pain of using margin on stocks like these.The stock market has very, very little to do with this. 
Buy quality companies in a momentum phase, and you can do very well. Buy pump and dumpers and you can get left holding a very big bag.
		
 
		
	 
Can you go into a little more detail how you identity momentum phase comps?
		
 
		
	 
Sure. I have a couple of screens that I use to weed out the chaff, and then I typically drop the low volume stocks off that list. I generally look for either a) companies with a high ROIC combined with a high earnings yield; or b) companies with a solid earnings growth over the last 5 yrs, combined with a low debt/capital ratio and a solid base of institutional investors. If a stock doesn't appear on this screen, I'd still buy it if the fundamentals were great and I wanted to play a hot sector (ATW fit that bill).Once I have that list, I watch for moving average crossovers, or if I missed a run-up, stocks that start to form bullish patterns, like a triple top (which JOYG formed last week). I've tracked Bollinger Band plays, but I haven't found that to work for me.
This combo of fundamental and technical analysis has done me pretty well this year, when I really started putting time and energy into my stock research.
In the future, I'll be more proactive about posting what I think could be a solid play. I'm sorry to have not posted about JOYG or Netease.com (NTES), both of which I found through these screens and have hit HRs with. But this board seems to like the pennies anyway.  
 
 
Another stock that has a great ROIC and high earnings yield is Innophos Holdings (IPHS), and I took a small position in that one last week at a price similar to today's close. With a PE ratio of 1.55 and a Forward PE of under 9, it's still undervalued versus its peer group.