Midas Group (MDS)

Company

"Midas is one of the world's largest providers of automotive service, offering brake, maintenance, tires, exhaust, steering and suspension services at more than 2,400 franchised, licensed and company-owned Midas shops in 15 countries, including nearly 1,650 in the United States and Canada. Midas also owns the SpeeDee Oil Change business, with 170 auto service centers in the United States and Mexico." (company website)

mds(1-1)
MDS 4-month chart
mds(1-1)_1yr
MDS 1-year chart

Buy

7 January. Buy 500 @ $8.63.

This wasn't supposed to happen. I meant to put in a sell order for the previous lot of MDS, trying to get out of the position with at least some profit. But— I hit the buy button instead of the sell button and ended up with two lots of MDS instead of just one.

  • Percentage price oscillator (PPO) — converging back toward the signal line
  • Volume — stable in the new year

Based on technical analysis, MarketEdge calls MDS an "avoid" and advises those who are short to "hold."

Sell

7 Jan 2010. Sell 91 @ $8.65. Of course, this counts as a day-trade.

FINRA provides that a pattern day trader is any account that executes four or more round-trip day trades within any rolling five-business-day period, provided the number of day trades represents at least 6% of the total trading activity during the same five-business-day period.

If you are flagged as a pattern day trader, you'll be subject to restrictions, including a minimum equity of $25,000 at the start of any day in which day trading occurs. Pattern day-trader accounts that fall below the $25,000 minimum equity requirement and day trading will be restricted to closing transactions only for 90 days, or until the equity is brought up to $25,000.

To be continued.

gain Bottom line
1%

11 Jan 2010. Sell 409 @ $8.75.

The folks at MarketEdge have upgraded MDS and claim that the chart shows "strongly improving conditions." Frankly, I don't see it. In fact, when there was a brief surge this morning I was happy to get out with a few cents more than break-even.

Maddeningly, at 1pm ET there was a sudden flurry of trades for MDS for no apparent reason, and as I write this it is up over $9.00. Who says, Timing isn't everything? Certainly not me, MDS just plunged back a dime, to below my sell price.