| StockFetcher Forums · General Discussion · OK....NO BS HERE! | << 1 2 3 >>Post Follow-up |
| johnpaulca 12,036 posts msg #59902 - Ignore johnpaulca |
2/24/2008 6:14:10 PM I am no pro but ya can sure supplement you income by trading. Here is an example of my first portfolio: started in dec05- buy and hold. Strategy: mostly prayers.  |
| deanengle 33 posts msg #59906 - Ignore deanengle |
2/24/2008 8:38:47 PM longduck74, I have traded for a living since 1978 and must say that my first 10 years were full of a lot of pit falls as I continued to have money managers and investment professionals rape, rob and pillage my accounts. I started out with a very nice nest egg and ultimately lost about 50 % of it by listening to the advice of a variety of investment professionals. I try to always keep things very simple in making investment decisions and for the last few years have performed extremely well. Without going into great detail here is a synopsis of my investing style. I do not buy common stocks directly as these people who do so are a part of the feed required by the wall street sharks, covered calls are a joke as you can make much higher returns in other venues . Commodities and options are my life blood and It is my opinion that these vehicles offer substantially more bang for your buck than most other ways you can use to make money. example find a fortune 100 stock that is going through up and down cycles of say 50 %, High is 60.00 and low 6 months later is about 30.00. Most of these cycles last less than 1 year. Buy a leap option at the bottom, say 30.00 and buy sufficiently deep in the money for a 10 % to double and then if the stock retraces the prior loss of 50 % you will have now made a 500 % profit ??? I also love small price equity options which I normally hold for a maximum period of 10 days or less. most of these generally return from 50 to 100 %. Just check out these 2 short term option plays with CHE and CLMT and see how they work ???? There is much more to be said, but I just make a lot of people mad with my curt and simple methods. Find something simple that works and stick with it. Do not use a shot gun approach and do not try to master all things in investing.... It is just too confusing when you look at the entire spectrum of investing. Just do 1 thing very good then you might explore another thing..take it slow and easy, intuition works well if you use it correctly, remember a fool and his money are soon parted. Many investors subscribe to far too many types of investing tools, so save your self some money and do some of the basic research your self. who knows it just might be fun to learn......Dean |
| miketranz 961 posts msg #59910 - Ignore miketranz |
2/24/2008 11:51:12 PM Niko,calm yourself down.I'm not a badass at all.Sometimes my N.Y. attitude comes out,don't hold it against me.Anyway I'll post my trades the next time I take a position.I've been sitting it out for the past 3-4 weeks just observing.Hey,way to go on that 10% gain,you beat out 98% of the pro money managers and traders with those figures,god bless..... |
| EWZuber 1,373 posts msg #59911 - Ignore EWZuber |
2/25/2008 4:13:23 AM miketranz, rtucker, I posted above that one needs at least $100K, IMO, to trade for a living. I have made it abundantly clear that my trading is restricted by the PDT rule. That means that I have less than $25K in my trading account. So does that make anything I say incorrect or irrelevant? If I had $100K in my trading account does that make me a more knowlegable trader or just someone who made money doing something else entirely or maybe a recipient of a windfall? My time will come, I am a very patient person. |
| longduck74 9 posts msg #59915 - Ignore longduck74 |
2/25/2008 10:26:02 AM Thanks for everyones advice and replies. I'll be honest here. I started trading back in 1999 and made a good amount of money and like everyone else, I lost it ALL in 2000. I took a break and started again a few years ago and had only 1 profitable year. So far, for 2008, I'm down about 50%. January was a tough month. It seems weird. Like most people here, I love reading charts. I just can't seem to get out at the right time. It seems so easy but yet, I can't seem to make a profit. I often think about trading for a living but the way I look at it...If i can't make a profit with $10,000...how can I make a profit with $100,000?? So, if most of us are losing money in the market....who's making all the money?? where's the money going?? AND...why do we continue to trade if we are not making money?? is it an additiction? |
| longduck74 9 posts msg #59916 - Ignore longduck74 |
2/25/2008 10:45:57 AM Thanks deanengle. Great post. |
| rtucker 318 posts msg #59928 - Ignore rtucker modified |
2/25/2008 12:33:08 PM d |
| EWZuber 1,373 posts msg #59941 - Ignore EWZuber |
2/25/2008 6:18:37 PM longduck74, I suspect you are exposing yourself to too much risk. That is what the PDT rule is all about. It moves the risk from the broker to you by attempting to force you into using Daily Charts and holding overnight ! That presents entirely too much risk, IMO. However when done with discipline you can be right only half the time and still be profitable if you recognize the failed trades as absolutely quickly as possible. The shorter the time frame the less risk is incurred. Imagine if you traded just the Weekly Chart indicators. Your sell stop would put you out of business on just a few bad trades. On the other hand, enter using the 1 minute charts your risk is extremely small but the PDT rule will keep you out of the market 99% of the time. A good compromise might be the Hourly Charts. This decreases your exposure to risk greatly as a broken trendline or support area on this chart might offer a 1~2% loss. Compare that to a Daily Chart where it might be 5% or slightly more. Once a position has lost 5% it has become a lot more difficult to take that loss than it would have been at 1~2%. The tendency is to hold on and hope for a better tomorrow. If tomorrow is worse then it has become doubly difficult to take that loss which has now grown. If you cut your losers quickly then you can make money even at ~40% winning trades. Lets look at MSFT just for an exercise. First is the Monthly Chart where we find that this is where LT support is holding the stock up for now. I will skip posting the Weekly Chart since all you need to see in this particular instance is that MSFT is oversold on the Weekly Chart and stochastic lines are almost totally converged. (important). [IMG]http://i26.tinypic.com/2hge7tv.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i31.tinypic.com/2jexmc7.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i27.tinypic.com/2vv3xn9.jpg[/IMG] I advocate initiating positions using intraday charts. As long as pattern support remains intact then the position is allowed to mature naturally. After 2 days of holding a profitable position using the Hourly Chart the Daily Chart support indicators can be used. After two weeks then one can switch to Weekly Charts for support indicators if desired. At this point switching to the Weekly Chart is geared more towards the investor than the trader. Also, I have found that it is usually very important to be watching the appropriate index while trading. I typically trade NASDAQ stocks so I watch the real time COMP chart. When the COMP makes a move the stock I am trading will typically react the same just moments later. Some stocks more than others. This can be a huge asset. I believe it is an absolute necessity to reverse engineer each failed trade. I can not stress this enough. If you do not then you will continue to make the same mistakes over and over infinatum. Then figure out what was missed, where was the exit signal that would have gotten us out at a small loss or even a small profit. |
| EWZuber 1,373 posts msg #59942 - Ignore EWZuber |
2/25/2008 6:24:42 PM Sorry forgot which URL to use, 
http://i26.tinypic.com/2hge7tv.jpg 
http://i31.tinypic.com/2jexmc7.jpg 
http://i27.tinypic.com/2vv3xn9.jpg |
| EWZuber 1,373 posts msg #59943 - Ignore EWZuber |
2/25/2008 6:36:20 PM |
| StockFetcher Forums · General Discussion · OK....NO BS HERE! | << 1 2 3 >>Post Follow-up |