Stock Market

I traded currencies for a time in the futures market. Day trading was good.. not as well as I had hoped. I used to study charts every night. Took a break from it for a bit.. but have plans to return to doing it in the future. Have a few other business ventures at the moment I invested in. Also have a money manager who takes care of IRA and such for me out of Chi-town.

What do you trade?

I don't reinvest my scrap money but I do play the penny's. In and out....it happens so fast, got caught a couple times recently but that the way is. Did however bust out a nice 8 grand profit on a two week play. Awesome! I started with $1600 one year ago and I'm still playing with it. I firmly believe these things should be taught in school with the mindset "you have profit, take it and move on". It's nuts. If I had known how to do this in high school...man....then you look back at 2009... Man I would have been a millionaire by now!









A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.
Plato

Jonny- Well the Alibaba IPO was the exception to the rule. Most IPO's get hyped hard and when someone on day 2 or 3 is on the short side (sell) when they short at its peak.. they make money even faster than the folks who bought low.. held and rode it to a high.

Originally Posted by ThatTubaDude

Would love to do some day trading but i'm in High school and don't know how, but i do save any silver i come across

TubaDude... Do some googling my man.. TONS of info out there on day trading. Remember this: HUGE GRAIN OF SALT. Alot of the brokers love to spout info.. just remember that generally it is not beneficial to you.. You have to know you, you have to find "an edge" you need to paper test the crap out of it and back-test it.. then and only then-- would you plunk real money down.

You can also get demo accounts from just about every broker out there!

Originally Posted by Sirscrapalot

."You think you got problems? I just lost 20k" Heh.

Looks like someone didn't utilize their "Stop-Loss" very well!

But on a smaller scale I can share with you a few experiences that will validate that! I traded the EUR/USD and USD/GBP.. London opens at 3:00 AM EST.. I was up at 2:30 and ready to trade the opening bell in London. I NEVER traded the Asian Session- whipsaw central! So I got up nightly/morningly and traded the London Market (Best Volume of the day- even topping the US session except at overlap).. There were a few nights that I went to bed thinking "Why am I going to work today? I just made $500 bucks" But some nights I went back to bed in the fetal position because I had just taken a $300 or $400 swift kick in the skull! It'll make your guts and your brain go to shat and rattle your nerves pretty quick.

I went through many brokers.. I had a few of them play the "bad fill" game and not execute my orders- even on an order that was placed when it hit a price point- I'd get "slip" as they call it and my 10 tick trade that I was shooting for was already 5 ticks gone before I got filled- so the 10 tick profit target got dinged to 5 profit.. then of course you pay a fee for each trade.. see how easily even your broker can kill you?

It's a DIRTY business.. I will caution anyone who wants to ever trade currencies to stay OUT of the "Forex Market" ONLY trade Currency futures- they are held to a high standard by the CME.. Forex Brokers can literally be gone overnight- and your account funding with it- its the wild west as far as regulation on the Forex Side.. Futures- you at least have a broker who must register with the CME and be liquid enough to carry trades.

Ok back to contracting.. let some of this sink in.. and feel free to ask me anything you want. I traded for about 4 years.. and I still have the bug!

I am not going to give any specifics as to where my money is sitting. I have already said that I have been dumping about 5% of my income into Silver. But I do have some in other places too. No, SirQuacksALot, not in my sock drawer.

But if you are inexperienced in the market and want to put your "guessing" to a true test. There is an App out there called "Market Millionaire". Download it and mess with it. It uses real time stock prices and starts you off with 100K, if you can get that 100K up to about 110-115 in 30 days, maybe you are ready to invest a couple grand. Just don't expect to double your money every 2-3 weeks. It isn't going to happen unless you get really lucky while making careless moves.

I will say this much, I do have about 30% of my stocks in high gain dividend commercial real estate companies (the ones the big stores and companies lease their buildings from) and let the dividends roll back into more shares. This way if the real estate market has a spike, the value of their holdings goes up with it, and in the process, so do their stock prices. And if it dips down a little bit, they pay a monthly dividend that rolling back into it absorbs the minor drop. And with inflation going the way it is... only 1 direction it can go.

I stay completely away from high dollar consumer manufacturers like automotive companies. (GM, Ford etc.) One bad report can cost you a large percentage of your investment, and it takes them months to recover from a 2-3 day loss. I also am staying away from financial institutions and lending companies, the more people are defaulting on loans due to the ever rising cost of living, their profits and stock prices are unstable. There are exceptions to every rule, but too many landmines to find while looking for them.

Now this is mid to long term investing, not day trading. I don't mess around with that stuff, too much hit and miss. One day can be great, and the next you can be wearing a turd sandwich that you just got fed to the side of your face while you weren't looking.

Originally Posted by F350scrapper

Sledge sounds like you know what your doing. Im all over the place in my trades. Up 15% last week. Alibaba scared me I was all in at 68 but when it came at 92 I ran. And good thing as it is at 88 closing today.

You made a SMART move my friend. You took your profit and cashed out- and you did so BEFORE everyone else did- so that was a PERFECTLY executed trade. Remember the old saying in trading: "Bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered" If you stay in too long and get greedy- you get the gutting!

Well played!

Originally Posted by Sirscrapalot

Sirscrapalot - Wishing he could write off a 20k loss when he was 18.

Oh but if only it were that simple my friend. IRS allows you only a $3K loss per year- the rest- you just watch it sail away- only to be gotten back with more hard work.. in some way or another!