The end of the rainbow?:
Wednesday, Jun 25 1997 4:45PM EST
Reply #87 of 1197
First off, I only say avoid bottom fishing for day traders. Stocks that get hammered usually fall farther for a few days as selling subsides but still comes in. Once the selling is done,the stock might start to rebound and recover. Personally, for my long term portion of my portfolio, I definately bottom fish for qualiyt. Check out my statements on S3. There's a bottomed out stock I love. If fact, if it goes lower, I wll definately be a big buyer.
For short term traders, you really want to stay with loved stocks, stocks that are acting well, outperforming on the upisde and fall less on bad days. You can try to pick the daily bottom on a bottomed out stock for a day trade, but I seen too many fall further and then further and a few days later you are out a fewe points. As a short term trader, this is a no, no.
As far as good growth, resting on a beach and letting a fund manager do its job, some of these SP funds and big cap mutual funds did awsome. I think mutual funds are great, THE product for 95% of the investing community. My firm, this thread, the readers here are the 5% who know the taste of buying a stock at 5 and watching it go to 11 in a few weeks or months. We are the heavy risk takers and do so for the great return. As a trader, you should be looking at a much greater return given the volatility and risk associate with such activity and commission expense. Whether you get it depends on your skill.
If you can make more money trading stocks than on a W2, consider becoming a professional trader. We had a school teacher come in here two years ago with $65,000. Obviously it was two great years. He just left about 6 months ago with about 1 1/2 million dollars. NO LIE! NO EXAGERATION! Now, that guy was awsome, the best I've seen. He did 20, 40 trades a day for 1000 shares. Always flat at the end of the day and did so with no emotion. Stock didnt react well, boom, sold it...stock looked good, buy it. No if ands or buts. Just pure focus on doing the RIGHT THINGS THAT TRADERS SHOULD DO. the things we all know but emotions or the feeling of selling at a small loss, "wishing it back" keep us from doing, this guy did perfect.
But there is HUGE risk associated with trading. If you can hack the risk, manage it well professionally and emotionally, perhaps its for you.
There are also various degrees, short term traders, swing traders, day traders, soes traders, options traders, floor traders. One of all might be for you. I am a head trader at a firm. I do a lot of day trading (not soes because I am a professional) but selectnet, on the phone, superdot, etc. for my own account but my main focus is handling the trades of our customers. ie. when retail customer calls in an order, I handle the trade. As an agency firm, whatever price I get, they get. I take pride in my and the other office trader's skill. I am a trader and get more salary than profit on my personal trades. So there are various ways of becoming a trade. |
