Someone or a group are trading ToughBuilt Industries stock $TBLT like it is their personal ATM

Good evening, it is Jeffrey Cohen, President of US Advanced Computing Infrastructure, Inc., an Illinois registered investment advisory firm. 

UPDATE: In the last 7.5 minutes of trading, about 7,000 shares were purchased for around $3.90 per share, +/- $0.05. It started at 15:52:30, and it took the price up ~ $0.08. We we see few trades on the smaller exchanges, most/ all of these we see are on the NASDAQ exchange. We do not see the off exchange, black markets or dark pools, where more could have been traded. The last trade was a 100 share round lot sale, that took the price down by $0.05, so we never saw the run-up into the close unless we really looked closely.

So, this isn't a 'short squeeze' player, it is someone ready to ride the stock higher in the morning, then dump hard. If you buy for a quick profit, take your profits fast. If you are looking to buy, maybe wait for the 7,000 share dump, then take advantage of that moment to acquire and ride it higher.

With a $4.00 stock, it doesn't take a millionaire to move this stock, just about $40,000 and guts.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
We noticed today that in the morning, the stock was run up in pre-market, then in the morning session. It was taken from 3.70ish on Wednesday, to open at $3.89, then traded to $4.25. It was exciting to watch, especially because we own shares. At around $4.20, we started thinking "this isn't too bad, maybe we should buy a few shares" but we knew the drill before it started.

While we were finishing our second cup of coffee at Starbucks, the stock started to fall. It fell to $3.60, or down $0.65 from the peak of the morning. The stops were hit, and selling continued. The margin calls and fear kicked in. The stock was in a rout.

Then, a little daylight appeared and the stock recovered to $3.85, with a $0.15 spread, so it was tough to trade on low, late morning and afternoon volume. So, it closed right around $3.85, and we are ready for Friday.

But, what did we see? Why write the blog post?

1. Social media on the stock turned decidedly positive. We saw calls for $5, $10 and even $20 on the normal chat boards. This is a stock that has been left for dead for weeks, and suddenly, the pumpers were pumping. I should probably write those account names down. They were right on target, right on queue, pumping the stock over $4.00 and watching it fall to $3.60.

2. This is an illiquid stock. We know this, and recently posted it to the Yahoo Finance chat board. Someone, or a few traders, were trading in large blocks today. 5,000 shares and 10,000 shares were bought or sold, then slowly the reverse action takes place to refill the position. The issue is that once the selling kicks in, there really isn't anybody excited about the stock (not that we see), so once they sell to fill the buy orders, the thing just free-falls. Then, a few sell orders are put in at the lower price, and the buy orders get lower, and the fall continues. Note to self, when we see market open accumulation, we can expect those shares to be dumped in one order, or in a few seconds, to tank the stock, then accumulation continues at the lower price.

Part of our strategy on this stock is to buy and hold. However, our other strategy (which we are not pursuing) would be to watch the action, and trade against it. If somebody sells 10,000 shares and the price drops,  buy 10,000 shares at the lower price, and sell them back to them. This would only work if they went short the shares, which they do not seem to be doing. In this case, they would have bought 10k shares, sold 10k shares, then we buy the 10k shares, then they wait. Maybe they accumulate, or maybe they do short 10k shares, putting our new position deep into the red.

This is a hair-raising stock to watch on a minute-by-minute basis, because it is so illiquid.

3. The volume shifts on this stock are massive. We accumulated this stock when each day maybe 3,000 or 5,000 shares traded, and we bought half those shares ourselves. We also saw 'big days' with 15,000 shares traded, or even, gasp, 40,000 shares in volume. Today, over 500,000 shares traded in the morning. This is a stock with only 700,000 shares outstanding, and Jeffrey Eaton owns 70k of them. 

So, what will Friday bring for ToughBuilt Industries Common Stock $TBLT? We don't know, but we expect the same volatility, the same rise and fall as today. We will be watching, but not likely to trade it.

Good luck. This is not investment advice...just someone watching from the sidelines.

We are amazingly bullish on this stock and company in the medium to long-term. We are long the common.