Yup. You might be more than half right, Mr. Graham. I have invested a big chunk of time wading through the last hundred posts and the ratio of info to chaf has changed...I might have to run the chart on this thread and fire up the level two's...it might be time to sell this thread short.
Steve, thanks for posting the symbols for tick and bonds. I wish you could give a simple definition of trin. I don't have a clue what that is and you mentioned it two or three times. I'll do a search for it and see what turns up.
Ofcourse being a newbie I really couldn't comment on too much, however I will say this...
I may indeed go the rest of my trading life without playing a penny again. But don't think I had a bad experience, because it was just the reverse. I made some wicked loot on LOCKC now known as LOCK. I happened to see it up on the board as CNBC went to commercial ( J.K. didn't mention it yet. I did quick checks on yahoo and other sites. I wasn't thrilled by the prospect of actually putting money on it, but the hype about Clinton's anouncement and the fact that it already went from .25 to 2.00 in 24 or 48 hours, and since I have the luxury/curse of not knowing any better... I got in and got out a few times and made loot. Even after I had found two damning reports on the net from a little investment bank down in Coral Gables about LOCKC's prospects for true success I traded it again. I looked at Noise Cancellation Technology and did not participate. I saw people hyping VLNT and CAML and saw two companies with great web sites and great loads of debt. Passed. Would have shorted the food irradiator this last week but I couldn't get in to it, tried twice. What was that one VFLI or VLFI?
Steve.... I WOULD NEVER own four or five or seven or what ever you said penny stocks at once...EVER. I don't see how anyone could ever do that under the label of day trading.
One of the big problems with pennies is the spread can be really a bit too much, second there is just a much better chance for volume to dry up or for the chartests out there i would submit that a much greater chance for things to occur that could never be indicated by MAO's.
I am not much of a chartist, but I do like AMAT on the long side for atleast the next few days if not weeks. At first I purposefully avoided trading in and out of the popular SOUS house stocks, but like one trader said, "AMAT is a daytraders dream." Not every day maybe, but often it is.
Irby, that is not a hype, but rather a feeble attempt to gain a shred of credibility { ofcourse it is such an easy call to make right now with the x-mas updraft I would imagine such a pick would not afford me much respect}. Besides I don't think one can truly "hype" a stock with that much float and daily volume, anyway.
Now, as far as Level 2 goes... I have had them up for two partial trading days {had to go to a funeral Friday morning} and I'm in love already. I was waiting to get them, because I agree with D.G> that fancy stuff does not a great trader make. But I would not wait so long if I had to do it over. IMO Level 2 really demonstrates the ebb and flow of market conditions quite well.
Hey some guys still pull ploughs with Belgian horses and I respect them, I choose to pull my ploughs with a big diesel tractor, Agco-Allis if your curious. And now that I have seen L2 I will use it happily.
Information if managed properly is no enemy of mine. Now to contradict myself yet again, I will also say this. I have read the following books on the stock market: The Motley Fool, from that book I learned some great basics, and they hyped me on IBD; only serious problem with those boys is their refusal to consider anything but buy and hold. One look at an ASND chart and you have to wonder if there are exceptions to every rule. Second and last book: Peter Lynch, One Up on Wall Street. Great book for guys like me and it was funny too. Excellent for investing, perhaps slightly poisonous for the daytrader.
NEWSLETTERS I have read: zero. That's it.
I read the internet, IBD and some times catch Rukeyser. I get NBR'S P.K.'s Market Wrap-up from quote.com for free, if I choose to. I am also on #daytraders which is free and is the bleeding edge of the net and the street in collision.
If you don't know what I'm refering too, or if you want to find out about other people's opinions on a subject, oh let's say penny stocks for example. You could try typing a word or two into the little search box on the SI home page...you can find out alot that way without too much trouble.
I'm not saying all this, because I think it's great, I'm rattling off this stuff with the thought that others could do the same, and I could learn more about daytrading from others. Sharing is caring...damnit.
No one replied- AGAIN to my post aways back that was intentionally grating. I said that Wall Street is a sloppy, sloppy place. A street that hemorages millions of dollars every minute of every trading day.
Furthermore, I declared the RMBS flare-up (of what two weeks ago?) a monument to all Day traders on earth of the oppotunity that exsists. ...Not one comment.
I am constantly upgrading my boiler room. It's a process and I enjoy it. Perhaps very soon I will switch to a house that does not sell market flow, and get better executions that way. I have definately gotten funked up by the brokerage house's lame web page idiocincracies a few times. It is annoying when the "beta" version of online trading systems, assists me in converting a 3/8 gain to an 1/8 loss. When they are really screwed up I call in the trades so its not the end of the world or my career. My point is, great executions or fair executions, this market is so sloppy, money can be made. I started trading with borrowed money that I pay interest on. After an initial string of gains; I seemed to loose just as much as I made and then in October I got a real ride of the wrong kind. After feeling the blistering heat of going down I finally started getting religon, I mean discipline.
Nothing teaches as efficiently as pain. I read about a fellow that lost 4 grand and quit daytrading and went back to investing. I felt bad about it, but also figured he knew best...for himself. I on the other hand have duller senses or something, because that kind of loss, while it is quite upsetting, is not too tough to overcome.
My best nugget to impart from one newbie to another...all pros please turn your head momentarily...thanks...
From one newbie to another I would say the biggest trick is to not have you money in the market. In other words, an investor will tell you, Newbie, "You can't make money if its not in the market". Well that may very well be true -> for investing. On a huge gainer day before I really got my wits about me, I would freak out completely that everything was going up and I was out of it, and everyone was making money except me, and on and on. A perfect fear/greed cocktail that would often allow me to perfectly pick a top and buy in right on it. Soon I would find myself the proud owner of a stock on its way down.
What the FUNK?
Now that I have been tempered by the heat of being on the wrong side of a trend a few too many times, I am much more comfortable in becoming more like a big Griz sitting in the ice cold stream waiting and watching. Wait and watch and when a fish comes just within reach, GRAB THE S.O.B.! Believe me this turns out to be far more gratifying than watching what may have been... as you are stuck with your capital in a stock that is not even contributing to the cause.
I would like to add one more thing before the pros all start reading again. Alot of us newbies and the population in general is fed heaping loads of pure organic fertilizer on a daily basis. There is a tremendous amount of effort and expense put foward every day by the securities industry .... aw forget it I'll save it for another time, besides I am just a dumb farmer so what do I know about anything.
OK newbie to newbie is done.
Currently no stock is too great or too small, from TBR to RADAF I will dance with whomever. I am now trying to concentrate on a small number of issues that I can develop a more meaningful relationship with.
No not love, just some steady dates. Xylnx was sweet this week. By aiming at a small bunch of volatile stocks I can hopefully learn the tid bits like... Friday afternoon I was watching AmAT.
I was too afraid of ascend at that point in time, had been away in the morning and such...
but I was watching AMAT and "knew" that:
A, Friday afternoon, some profit taking, was bound to occur, but
B, some buying was due to come near the close for Monday's gap up, but
C, the stock made a sweet move just there in the afternoon so it was hard to judge which part of the tug of war was going to dominate and when.
I decided to go short and then go long late, but not so late that I paid a bit too much at the last minute of trading. So I went short at 34.
It was stalled there and I got impatient. You may know off the top of your head that when AMAT left 34 Friday afternoon it left with a vengence. I realized I was on the wrong side really soon and in a rookie panic started monkeying with limit orders when a market order was absolutely the right way to go. BUT I have already professed my lack of experience and my dull senses... A simple market order would have had me out at 3/8, but as it was with a slow interface and Mr. Stupid using Limit orders I got out finally at 34 and 3/4 and that was AFTER AMAT saw 35. Anyway it was too bad, but no biggie, I had the rough idea about the trend, just off on timing. Now I had just given away almost everything I had made earlier in the day on XLNX, but I went long and that felt a whole lot better as AMAT roared up again. Gained back 1/4 or 3/8 there. When gsco got on amat's offer at 35 5/8 with twenty or twenty-five minutes to go; I remembered, I heard the last couple weeks from traders with level2 - they had alot to say about Goldman holding AMAT down relentlessly from time to time -alot of stock to sell - and that was it the top. That MM held it right there. Didn't, have the nerve to play it, I have only shorted a handful of times so far. Sure nuff down she went. Coulda shoulda woulda shorted it, but that's not the point, I watched and learned.
To me maintaining three positions at once would be ALOT. And being in one stock is fine with me. One practice that I have started to become much more disciplined about is just buying 1000 shares at a time, I will certainly break that "rule" in the future, but hopefully only on rare occasions.
In the past, I would load up on huge amounts of shares in a way that in itself sort of proves that I was going into a trade being a bit piggy from the start. Not the right aproach.
After sobering up in October I really have aimed for 1/2 point gains alot more often than the full pointers. They happen, but not as often as the fractions. Now Friday there was some easy full pointers and multi-pointers, but I am never going to regret lost opportunity as much as lost money, so no sweat there.
One last thing, for me and maybe I am the only one, I am adverse to exspensive books or classes, especially the classes. WHY? I have always felt that one tenet of education, the way I experienced it in both public and private schools in the U.S., one tenet is that the student is an empty container devoid of understanding, and must be filled with knowledge by another. This form of education is an efficient way to grow up generations of good doobies that will all conform to standards and be inclined toward taking direction from others. Helps build a productive country that way.
Well FUNK on that!
Approaching life and trading with the notion that a pro must show you everything, rrrrrr I just don't like the idea, maybe, but I don't know, doesn't strike me as right. I'll say it like this. If you choose to read a bunch of books and take some classes, GREAT, really. However, do not think for one minute that this will make null and void the reality that you will need to find within YOURSELF that certain "place" or "attitude" or set of "rules" that YOU understand and YOU can follow. Woops sorry pros I guess I started talking to myself again. Irby which comes first Dow 10,000 or Final Frontiers 10,000 posts?
Oh by the way, I am daytrading so that one day I can afford to be an investor, also before I pass on or retire, I hope to day trade a block or berkshire hathaway once or twice, just to say I did it. That might take awhile. hehehe.
Cheers to one and all, and to all a good night.
AE |
