CONTEST INVESTOR SCORES BIG WITH INTERNET STOCK.Byline: Deborah Adamson Daily News Staff Writer Talk about windfalls - imagined and real. Last Wednesday, Rick Zulawski ``bought'' 9,995 shares of Books-A-Million for $12.9375 in a bold attempt at regaining first place in the Daily News Stock Picking Contest. And while he was at it, he really did buy 2,000 shares for his own account. On Friday, Zulawski's gamble paid off. Books-A-Million, an Internet bookseller that announced a major revision of its Web site, soared to close at $38.9375 as real-life investors pounced pounce 1 v. pounced, pounc·ing, pounc·es v.intr. 1. To spring or swoop with intent to seize someone or something: at the latest Internet craze. Zulawski's payoff: $260,000 in the fictional stock-picking contest and $52,000 in a real paper profit on his personal account. ``It's my biggest gain ever,'' said the 43-year-old Boeing toolmaker, and the biggest windfall any player in the contest has had. Zulawski's wife, who works at Home Depot The Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is an American retailer of home improvement and construction products and services. Headquartered in Vinings, just outside Atlanta in unincorporated Cobb County, Georgia, Home Depot employs more than 355,000 people and operates 2,164 big-box , said she didn't believe her husband at first when he called her with the news. ``He's always trying to be a jokester. I thought he was pulling my leg. I said, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. It was like crying wolf.'' Zulawski didn't sell Friday because he thinks the stock might have some mileage left. If it starts going down when trading resumes today, he plans to sell it right away to lock in his gains. Why Books-A-Million? ``It's a lot cheaper than Amazon.com. That was a key item,'' he said. ``They do exactly the same thing.'' Except for one difference, he noticed. Amazon.com sold books at a 40 percent discount, while Books-A-Million's was 46 percent. ``(Friday) was the biggest shopping day of the year. I figure that there were more positives to picking it than negatives,'' he said. He didn't just pick the company out of a hat. Two years of day trading Day trading Establishing and liquidating the same position or positions within one day's trading. taught him the value of watching trading volume Trading volume The number of shares transacted every day. As there is a seller for every buyer, one can think of the trading volume as half of the number of shares transacted. That is, if A sells 100 shares to B, the volume is 100 shares. . On Wednesday, he noticed that Book-A-Million's trading volume skyrocketed to 30 million. The company's average volume is 600,000 shares. Something's up, Zulawski surmised. ``If you're a day trader Day Trader A stock trader who holds positions for a very short time (from minutes to hours) and makes numerous trades each day. Most trades are entered and closed out within the same day. Notes: This is a highly speculative practice. , you kind of know the crowd, where the crowd is going and what it's looking at. But you have to be very cautious.'' After watching the phenomenal performances of other Internet stocks Internet stock The equity security of a company engaged primarily in a business associated with the Internet. Also called dot-com. such as eBay, Amazon.com and America Online See AOL. , Zulawski felt that something big was brewing. ``That was telling me that there are a lot of baby boomers See generation X. with a lot of money out there. There's a lot of new cash going into the market, and they're moving it around quickly. If you can understand where this money is going . . . you can jump on the bandwagon along with them.'' Oh, and as for the stock-picking contest, Zulawski is back in first place with a portfolio of about $389,000. His nearest competitor has about $171,000. Each started with a fictional $100,000. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: (color) Zulawski |
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