Tim Bourquin from Trader Interviews is scheduled to interview me tonight via telephone. Several popular bloggers and many successful traders have been interviewed in the past so I am looking forward to the experience. Trader Interviews is produced by TNC New Media, Inc. TNC New Media produces online media, tradeshows and conferences worldwide for highly-targeted audiences.

I am assuming that the audio version of the interview will be available in the near future via their website and through iTunes (this is how I listen to their interviews; I download them to my iTouch via subscription).

Dave from StockTicker did an e-mail interview with me last March that you can view here. Not much has changed since then but everyone grows from year to year so I am anxious to see if I answer questions differently. Trading and investing is an evolving endeavor so I would not be surprised if my answers change over the years.

Below is the script of questions and answers from my interview last year:

StockTickr: Tell us a little about yourself, Chris.

Chris: My name is Chris Perruna and I am 29 years old. I currently reside in New Jersey with my wife but was born and raised in NY (still my favorite place). I graduated college with a degree in Architectural Engineering and went to work for a historic preservation firm in Manhattan. I started as an intern with the firm while still in college and worked on several high end projects around the corner from Wall Street. It wasn’t until I was about to graduate that I knew I wanted to work on Wall Street and trade the markets professionally (rather than personally). I even signed up and took the trips to the exchanges each year through my university’s business school. I currently consult for a fortune 500 big builder as an architect (listed on the NYSE) and trend trade for capital appreciation. I am a trend trader looking for gains of 25% or more and losses no larger than 10% (preferably smaller). Understand that this 10% loss is calculated into a position sizing spreadsheet that only risks a maximum of 1% of total capital. My foundation is rooted in CANSLIM philosophies but I developed my system with detailed position sizing calculations and money management rules from Dr. Van Tharp.

StockTickr: What do you like to do outside of trading?

Chris: My hobbies include poker on a competitive level, a men’s flag football league in the fall and a softball league in the spring. It drives my wife nuts but I like to compete in most things I do so sports, poker and the market feed that craving. I also enjoy traveling, attending professional baseball and football games and dining at great restaurants. Del Frisco’s (NYC) gets the nod here!

StockTickr: How did you get started trading stocks?

Chris: I open my first brokerage account as a sophomore in college and have not stopped trading since. I first gained an interest in trading from my father who owned restaurants and traded heavily in the 1970’s and 1980’s. I still trend trade heavily based on his 200-day moving average plays. I started tracking stocks when I was a teenager but didn’t become “obsessed” until college. I started college when the 1990’s market was starting to really boom and I benefited greatly over the first couple of years – it was all luck, pure luck.

StockTickr: Most traders have a horror story about losing their shirt when they first started trading. What’s yours?

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The weekly chart of Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) is starting to breakdown in a similar way that CROX broke down but the institutional numbers don’t support the down side as strongly as it did with CROX. The number of shares sold exceeded the number of shares bought by 46% when I highlighted CROX as a potential breakdown stock back in September in the post titled “Will CROX get Eaten?”

“Recent churning action below $60 per share shows that buyers are no longer in control of the stock. However, sellers haven’t completely gained control either. It is a tug-of-war between supply and demand as we await the ultimate direction of the next trend for the heavily covered Crocs Inc. (CROX).”

The difference here is that CMG has only recorded a 19% increase in shares sold versus shares bought which is not excessive. However, the stock has violated the 200-d moving average for the first time since the long up-trend started. We can also see the first violation of the relative strength versus the S&P 500 suggesting that the stock is no longer a leader and may fall victim to increased institutional selling.

Yes, the current fundamentals look strong but CMG posted a fourth-quarter profit that missed Wall Street’s expectations and said 2008 would remain challenging, raising some red flags in my opinion. They could be playing it cautious or they could be signaling the beginning of the end of this particular run.

The stock is 32% off of its all-time high and has been falling on increasing volume as it violated the long term moving average. I am not shorting at this spot but I will jump on puts about six months out on the first failed attempt to make new highs above the 200-d m.a.

Listen to what the Institutional Buyers are Saying (with their actions):
Total Held by Institutions: 386
Money Market: 182
Mutual Fund: 200
Other: 4

New Positions: 107
Positions Sold: 58
Shares Held: 29.28 mil
Shares Held Previous Period: 30.12 mil

Shares Bought: 4.31 mil
Shares Sold: 5.16 mil
Value of Shares Bought: $554.8 mil
Value of Shares Sold: $663.9 mi

• The number of shares held has decreased by 3%
• The number of shares sold exceeded the number of shares bought by 19%
• The value of shares sold was $109 million more than bought

It took a couple of months but CROX did get Swallowed and it all started with the small and subtle red flags that we are starting to see with CMG.

“I wrote a post titled Will CROX get Eaten? on September 20, 2007 and strongly noted the declining institutional support (see numbers below). Someone was jumping out of the stock and we now know why!”

“Stocks only churn when buyers and sellers are struggling to take control. More often than not, stocks churn because BIG institutions are selling shares to the small retail buyer (the sucker). Institutional numbers and charts that back them up don’t lie! The big boys can’t hide if you know how to read them.”

Platinum futures are up more than 600% over the past 10 years and have almost doubled from 1,200 to 2,053 over the past twelve months.

What catches my eye is the extreme run-up over the past two months as the metal seems to be making a climax run (out of character during the 10-year up-trend). Similar action started to happen in PTR and I highlighted it in the exact manner as I am doing here with $PLAT in a post titled The Real PTR Climax Run.

Petrochina, currently trading at $150, is now 50% off of its high of $266.81, a number reached during the climax run. I was a little early with PTR when I wrote the post Petrochina (PTR) Climax Top? back in September 2007.

Based on my PTR analysis, wait for the breakdown in Platinum to begin prior to picking a top, if it even happens. This is a game of odds and we can’t be 100% certain that Platinum is going to breakdown and correct by more than 20% over the next six months. However, I will establish a position when the ideal entry presents itself. The ideal entry could be a large reversal on heavy volume while making new highs early in the day and/or week or it could be a series of large down days on increasing, above average volume.

I do want to be clear that I am not suggesting that the long term multi-year run in Platinum is over but a correction of more than 20% may be in the works.

What do you think?

Enjoy on this cold Saturday in NY!

Clemens: You want answers?

Congressman: I think I’m entitled to them.

Clemens: You want answers?

Congressman: I want the truth!

Clemens: You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has baseballs. And those balls have to be hit by men with bats. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Congressman? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for steroids and you curse HGH. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that HGH, while illegal, probably sells tickets. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, sells tickets…You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that mound. You need me on that mound. We use words like fastall, slider, splitfinger…we use these words as the backbone to a life spent playing a sport. You use ‘em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and falls asleep to the Sportscenter clips I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I’d rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a bat and dig in. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to!

Congressman: Did you order the HGH?

Clemens: (quietly) I did the job you sent me to do.

Congressman: Did you order the HGH?

Clemens: You’re god damn right I did!!

I am a trend trader, as mentioned hundreds of times, but I listen when Mr. Warren Buffett speaks! Below are the most logical statements I have heard in a long time. He makes much more sense than the predictions we are bombarded with by the talking head media and so-called “experts”. The so-called experts barely take home a six figure salary (if half of that), many stuck in the rat race but are qualified by major networks and media outlets to educate the masses (or sheep as I like to call them).

I’ll pass on the information from all the talking-heads and listen very attentively when the second richest man on the planet and greatest investor of all-time speaks. I am also bullish on the United States over the long term as nations and markets work in cycles. I am not a believer in doomsday predictions, authors, books or religions. Like Warren Buffett and William O’Neil, I am long the United States for the rest of my life until something shows me the trend has ended. The past several years (dating back to 2000) are a small pimple on the ass of this great country.

“I am a huge bull on the American economy,” said Mr. Buffett, in an exclusive interview with the National Post.

Financial markets around the world have been heaving amid fears that banks will have restrain lending and damage other areas of the economy in order to shore up their capital and rebuild their balance sheets.

But Mr. Buffett says the United States has survived such turmoil before.

“We’ll always get through,” he said. “I’m a bull on the United States. Just think about how silly it would have been to be anything other than a bull on the United States since 1790. It is not a smart thing to sell the United States short over the years — or Canada for that matter. The world does get better. People get more productive. More human capacity is unleashed over time.”

“He said the banks will be able to work out their troubles without government assistance but may not be the “best investments.”

“They’re going to be around,” he said. “The ones that have taken the big write-offs, they’re not going out of business but they’re selling a lot of new shares in the process so they’re diluting future earnings. They’re paying a price.

“I think most of the very big ones and I won’t name names, I think five or 10 years from now people will have made money on them but I think they’ll have made money on other things too. I don’t think necessarily they’re the best investments, but they have not been permanently crippled.”

He sees no need for any government bailouts in the financial sector, similar, to the government rescue of U.S. banks during the savings and loans crisis in the early 1980s. U.S. banks have enough money to handle the extra cost.

“They can handle it and they’re paying a price for it,” he said. “Somebody has to bear those losses. Is it better that the XYZ bank bears it or is it better to socialize it for the American public. I’d rather have the XYZ bank pay for it.”

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