ProxyMed (PILL)

Company

"ProxyMed provides connectivity, medical cost containment services, business process outsourcing solutions, and related value-added products to providers, payers, pharmacies, medical laboratories, and healthcare suppliers. ProxyMed's services support a broad range of both financial and clinical transactions, and we are HIPAA certified through Edifecs. To facilitate these services, ProxyMed operates Phoenix™, our secure national electronic information platform, which provides physicians and other primary care providers with direct connectivity..." (company website)

Buy

5-Aug-05. ProxyMed took a dive a year ago (see sidebar) and did not bottom out until May. Since bottoming, PILL has been mostly moving upward against a resistance line at about $8. After two big down-days that brought PILL back below the 50-day moving average, it rebounded off the lower Bollinger band today to engulf yesterday's candlestick.

• Price momentum (PPO) — slowing, but still positive
• Trend (ADX) — no trend to speak of, moving sidewise between $7 and $8
• Money flow (CMF) — positive, but weak
• Relative strength (RSI) — essentially neutral, but stochastic RSI (StochRSI) suggests PILL has been oversold and may soon recover
• Volume — pretty low average daily volume

That said, What was I thinking? I have to admit that I am taking a decidedly Panglossian view of this stock. I hope it is not a bitter pill to swallow. ~GROAN~ Sooner or later it will break out of this range; I just hope it is sooner and to the upside.

Sell

10-Aug-05. The good news is, I got out with most of my shirt. The bad news is, my shirt should not have been at risk in the first place.

In addition to the reservation noted above, I have been very antsy about PILL because the COO recently resigned and there had been no announcement about an earnings date. Looking at past report dates, I believed the report had to be imminent. Yesterday, after the close, I noticed an item that PILL had filed its 10-Q (quarterly report) with the SEC, but there was no press release about the earnings. My bad-news-detecto meter started jumping. I looked up the 10-Q: PILL reported a loss of $0.23 compared to a loss of only $0.06 the year before. I immediately prepared a sell order if PILL traded below yesterday's close, which happened as soon as the market opened. Since my shares sold, PILL has dropped a lot more, which is some small consolation I suppose.