Frequently Asked Questions...

What's The 1 Percent Solution?

Our definition of The 1 Percent Solution: The process of identifying a stock that when bought near 10am will, when sold, have appreciated in value at least 1%.

When are Today's Picks for our subscribers posted ?

Our picks are posted no later than 9:55am.

Why we buy our stock pick at 10:00 AM ET?

Prices for the S&P Futures and major stocks frequently reverse direction during or near this time period. The basic reason for the reversal is that market price orders have been filled and more realistic prices based on supply and demand commence. Usually, the longer it takes for the first market reversal to occur, the more pre-market orders (and volume) exist. If the market is basically stable, prices typically continue in the reversed direction until about 10:25 AM ET.

In our opinion, the best time to buy the stock pick is at 10:00 AM ET.

Why do we sell our stocks with a limit order?

The simplest explanation here is because the limit order will most likely get us out of our position at the price we want.

Exactly what do we do ?

1. We get Today's Primary Pick - if any.

2. Calculate the number of shares to purchase by dividing our cash position by the share price at precisely 10:00* AM ET and place our buy order for the stock. We take care to round off to the nearest 100 shares (a round lot). For example, we don't place an order to buy 162 shares. We buy 100.
   
3. When we receive a fill report from our broker, we immediately place our limit sell order, GTC, for at least 1% greater than our buy price (with a 2% stop-loss). 1% orders fill sooner than higher percentages but we may add a little to cover our trading costs. We verify that our buy and sell orders are for the same number of shares. For example, if we bought a stock that priced at $49.99/share, then we'd place our limit order for $50.48/share. i.e $49.99 + $0.49 = $50.48
   
4. We check our position at day's end to see if our sale was filled. If not, we just hold the stock until it does sell or falls to our 2% stop-loss.
   
5. If our stop-loss gets triggered we wait and watch and when the price returns to our 2% exit we get back in and place a 3% limit (2% to cover our loss and 1% for our expected return. Our stop-loss is at our entry here.
   
6. We repeat step 5 as often as necessary as our track record is very, very good. Our process finds fundamentally good companies whose stocks represent real value and are expected to cover the 1% in the near future.

* If we are able to watch the stock price movement on a chart program, and see that the stock price is in a falling price pattern we will wait for the bounce and then buy.

Maximum Loss

•  2% for the first stop, plus:

•  Ticket/commission charges per each step 5 .

What's "near future"?

Most of our stock picks cover the 1% the same day. However, some take longer. (see Archive)

Will there be a "pick" every day?

Alas, no. Sometimes several days will pass no Pick will be posted. We post stock picks only if our minimum criteria is met.

What is a A, a B, a C, or a D Pick?

What's a D? This is our original recipe, 23 criteria, stock pick.

What's a C?. This is our original recipe plus 1.

What's an B? These magical creatures are picks that are valid for both C and D criteria. They happen once in a while but for us they are gems. They are almost the best of the best picks from 1%.

How is the “Official” 10am Stock Calculated?

We take the minute of the 10am price quotes – add the high price of that minute to the low price of that minute and divide by 2 to get the average of the 10am prices. We then post the calculated price as the 10am price on our website.

Who is T1PS?

We are stock traders, but not professionals, we have real other jobs. However, we do trade as actively as possible. For years we have been looking for a system that would give us consistent results. We've traded options, commodities, foreign currency, one of us was even a broker and after much trial and error we discovered The 1 Percent Solution. We put our money where our mouth is. . .we trade our money using this system. We always try to remember, don't get greedy and we'll find it works for us like it always has in the past

What is 1% Worth? - a Million?

First -- The "Rule of 72" is a rule of thumb that can help us compute when our money will double at a given interest rate. It's called the rule of 72 because at 10% / "period", money will double every 7.2 "period"s.

To use this simple rule, we just divide the interest into 72. In our example, if we average 2% / week from investmenting and that rate stays constant, our money will double in 72 / 2= 36 weeks (less than 1 year!). Of course we can also compute an interest rate if we are told that our money will double in so-and-so many years. For example, if our money has to double in two years so that we can buy our significant other a car, we'll need 72 / 2 = 36% rate of return / year.

Like any rule of thumb, this rule is only good for approximations.

Second, to calculate how many 1% trades you need to have to arrive at a $1,000,000, excluding commissions and taxes, use the following formula:

i.e. (log1,000,000 - log2000)/log(1+0.01) or (6-3.699)/0.00432 = 533 times. Here $5000 is the starting amount and 533 times is the number of 1% trades required to move from $5,000 to $1,000,000 - excluding commissions and taxes.

Notes:

For several months now we have been evaluating methods to improve on stock position entry and exit. Below are our findings and recommendations:

1 - We looked at several 'trend' recognition software packages over the last couple of months. While we did not do an exhaustive test of all possible software products we never the less concluded that most were too expensive, did not deliver much help, were difficult to learn, or were not really much better than a simple charting package.

2 - Several of our subscribers use 'trend' software, are happy with their purchases, and use them to good purpose but we, t1ps, have chosen not recommend any of them. If someone who subscribes to our service wishes to send us their process for using their software and our picks, they may do so and we may, at our discretion, post it on our web site.

3 - Below are charts of Picks. On each 5 minute chart: The Pink shaded line is the initial run up after open. The Blue shaded line is pullback from the initial run up. The Green shaded line is the position entry and 1% area. Remember when looking at these charts, they are shown as examples only.

"Buy Low - Sell High"