OTOT Trading for beginners
Since my friend's IPO closed so strongly yesterday, I decided to try and parlay my winnings by buying still more--on margin--at the opening today, intending to do my first ever "day trade." But I had to run to attend a conference on--get this!--how the US should deal with any significant future financial disturbance. So I placed my order with Schwab before the market opened and caught the train for work.
Realizing it might be a volatile day, and slightly uncomfortable being on margin, I checked on how the new purchase was doing by cel phone from the train, and was tickled to be up more than 10%. I rushed in late to the conference, and sat through a couple of actually very interesting hours with lots of big shot financial types discussing the risks of a potential crash, how the system should respond, etc. The whole time I was grinning and doodling and thinking how much Q, GMST, and so forth I would buy later with the proceeds from my skyrocketing day trade.
At the first break I rushed up to my office to check on how things were going, and was appalled to find my new profits almost wiped out. The chart showed that ITXC had peaked a few minutes after the open, up 30% from where I got in this morning, and then had begun to give back the days gains. I just managed to liquidate my day trade with a few K profit, but had learned a great (and painful) lesson in never taking anything for granted and never, ever, doing short-term trading while not in extremely close touch with the market...
a wiser, altho not as much richer as he expected,
tekboy |
