RumblingRosco
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Stock-Age: Stocks, Options and Dividends oh my!
- Thread starter koam
- Start date
I was among those considering pulling out, but I was waiting until we had a lower high...which we never had because the markets came back so fast and hard. So I'm still in, I never actually pulled the trigger.
My own stocks haven't rallied enough to bring my portfolio to all time highs, though.
FINALFANTASYDOG
Member
Stock-market is a scary place, yet fascinating place, I'm up almost 25% since Feb 7th(I was down like 18% at the time for the year though....).
Thanks entirely due to Pandora recovering from twitter crash, Tesla soaring and groupon dying...
February has been great so far indeed, I'm up about 6% on only ETFs in just the last 6 market days. Not expecting this to continue but it's nice. Of course I also only bought in with most stuff early February which is extra nice.
Ether_Snake
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I pulled out and reinvested 90% not long after. Made a nice profit then, and I'm up 13% (although I never sold CAE which counts for a bit of half of this), and got lucky since right after I sold DDD and SSYS tanked hard which gave me a good buying opportunity I wouldn't have had without having sold stuff beforehand. I sold my TSLA and SCTY then though, and they kept going up since.
All in all, it allowed me to rebalance things nicely, but I wish I hadn't sold TSLA and SCTY, although my reasoning as justified (I believe TSLA is highly overvalued, so it wouldn't take much to bring it down, and SCTY was a bit dodgy due to all they are doing to increase financing).
February is actually one of the worst months on average historically along with august. http://www.moneychimp.com/features/monthly_returns.htm
edit: here's my taxable account portfolio excluding a very old PBR zombie stock I own that I exclude
NKE and DDD and SSYS would be much higher, it's just that having sold and rebought recently makes them look smaller. I quite like the makeup of my portfolio right now. PEP and KO are the two I will liquidate if I need money to make an opportunity purchase, they are really there just to hold some money with slight potential gain, especially since KO is IMO in a transition phase, there's upward potential mined by lack of confidence.
I use Fidelity as my broker, I like em.
I decided to do it a few months ago and quit my job. So glad I did.
If you're doing that well, I suggest to keep on going. It's good money and NASDAQ swing trading is pretty easy, it can be slow gains with small capital though. Hence why I do the OTC. Made $4k today. Can't beat that!
FINALFANTASYDOG
Member
No love, just curious, what's your biggest loss ever?
I'm so risk adverse that my gains are always so miniscule. Only reason I made $14k~ in the past two weeks is that I was down so much(due to a really really poor choice in amazon.com in my 401k plan and a large investment in it normally) that I just said screw it and starting going all in when I saw openings and not caring about a 1k loss here and there... Now that I'm way back in the black I'm back to being Mr.Timid and wanting to protect my gains.
Ether_Snake
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TSLA up 13%, anyone know why?
Analyst upgrade
FINALFANTASYDOG
Member
Hooray for being short! down 5K today..... I switch paths half-way through which has helped sooth the wounds a bit though...
Ether_Snake
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So TSL's market cap is half of Honda's and Ford, over half of BMW.
About $5.6k. Hurts, don't it?
FINALFANTASYDOG
Member
Lost it today, due to poor stupidity thinking Telsa couldn't possibly go over +15%! and yes it does!.... Did you just quit that day or keep going?
FINALFANTASYDOG
Member
Okay lord, time for me to quit.
How can I possibly be down 9.5k+ 15% today(well margin helps that)
Telsa short keep doubling down on it -> switch lanes -> Telsa goes down -> Throw it all into dreamworks -> dream-works goes up briefly and then down 1.34%
Why not to trade when you don't have a straight head on. Going to ride dreamworks out till earnings reports and then quit this game...
How can I possibly be down 9.5k+ 15% today(well margin helps that)
Telsa short keep doubling down on it -> switch lanes -> Telsa goes down -> Throw it all into dreamworks -> dream-works goes up briefly and then down 1.34%
Why not to trade when you don't have a straight head on. Going to ride dreamworks out till earnings reports and then quit this game...
RumblingRosco
Member
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Some days it can be smart to leave it be. Else your frustration will have you do things you'll regret. "Thinking it can't" is also a sure sign of a tactic that's likely to blow up. One should always trade without feeling, because emotions is one of the biggest factors contributing to patterns and making charts like modified Heikin Ashi work. Trade analytically, and frustration won't be a problem, too.
Yeah, sorry to say it, but it speaks to my previous point. When you obviously was sure Tesla was going down, why did you suddenly say "no, wait" and do it over? If you follow the swing of the market, you're always the last to the table. You (hopefully) made an informed decision to say it was going down, so when that doesn't happen, you should say "obviously, I was wrong" and step back and reassess the situation. Jumping in the way you didn't think it would go is not what one would want to do.
Why are you counting on earnings to bail you out? As rough as things are right now, if it gaps down you'll hate yourself even more.
Especially if you're trading short term on margin...most short term traders don't play earnings for this reason.
Whatever you do, best of luck, hope you'll make it fine!
FINALFANTASYDOG
Member
Yep... too top it all off based on how this is moving.. if it goes down 2 more points, if I would have made a profit today.... Instead of sitting at $11.5K down....(DWA really wasn't a smart move to move to and just say I'm going to sit it out.....)
FINALFANTASYDOG
Member
Yep, you were right down another 15k, well that about wraps it up for me, onto mutual funds for the rest of my investing days! Why semi-emotionally unstable people shouldn't play the stock-market, especially with margins! you can lose half of your savings / close to a year's salary in a day.
Got upset but was trading the next day and didn't give up.
BTW, if you want to see where I got some good gains this week thus far, check out VGPR. Made $10k there yesterday and today. Riding free shares and should be able to sell them close to half a cent, if not more. Good times. I wouldn't play it though... it's one of those plays where unless you watch it all the time and flip for 10-30% gains during swings, you can get burned easily.
FINALFANTASYDOG
Member
As I try to save the rest of what I got left here, question regarding after-hours trading:
Here's the log of trades:
17:09 $ 32.55 100
17:06 $ 35.20 High 8,802
17:04 $ 32.17 Low 100
17:01 $ 32.57 100
16:56 $ 32.56 50
How in the world did a $35.20 trade get executed... and why when I had a bid in at 32.55 did that person's bid get executed instead of mine?
Here's the log of trades:
17:09 $ 32.55 100
17:06 $ 35.20 High 8,802
17:04 $ 32.17 Low 100
17:01 $ 32.57 100
16:56 $ 32.56 50
How in the world did a $35.20 trade get executed... and why when I had a bid in at 32.55 did that person's bid get executed instead of mine?
Because it doesn't go in order. It's whenever the broker executes it. There is no exact science to it.
Ether_Snake
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I hope ADSK starts a downward trend tomorrow, that would be nice. This thing needs to go back in the high 30s or at least low 40s for me to get back in.
And FFD: don't invest like that:/ Put money in safe stuff, especially with the return rates you aimed for. Just put it in ETFs with low expense ratios,in your 401k, that way it's usually more of a hassle to touch it and you have fewer choices. Put a date on the calendar: evaluate your positions every four months. And then it's just about being patient. My 401k-equivalent has given me market-and-higher return rates since inception in 2006, and it's the one I fiddle the least with.
And never trade on margin.
And FFD: don't invest like that:/ Put money in safe stuff, especially with the return rates you aimed for. Just put it in ETFs with low expense ratios,in your 401k, that way it's usually more of a hassle to touch it and you have fewer choices. Put a date on the calendar: evaluate your positions every four months. And then it's just about being patient. My 401k-equivalent has given me market-and-higher return rates since inception in 2006, and it's the one I fiddle the least with.
And never trade on margin.
FINALFANTASYDOG
Member
Especially never do emotional trading that ends with you using margins on random earnings reports with the hopes of recovering your losses for the day. Yes I realize I'm a moron ^_^
Down at least min -$24k, 35%(Still need to figure out when I'm going to be selling DWA tomorrow....) in a bloody freaking non-crash day..... feels like I won the reverse lottery... didn't have any immediate need for the money anyway is how I can re-assure myself.
You are right time to rethink, find some good investments and then not look at it more then once or twice a week!
Ether_Snake
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If your investments are as I have described, it should be "not look at it more than once every 4 to every 6 months", and possibly even not more than once a year depending on the funds.
Make the same monthly contributions and nothing else.
Make the same monthly contributions and nothing else.
You lost $24k? Stop now... You are playing a bit too recklessly. How long did it take you to lose that 24k?
FINALFANTASYDOG
Member
6 hours..... On non penny stocks
This explains most of it....
02/28/2014
Buy
DREAMWORKS ANIMATION INC
DWA
2447 35.13 (85,959.27)
2/28/2014
Pending
Buy
DREAMWORKS ANIMATION INC
DWA
1992 35.12 (69,965.11)
02/28/2014
Pending
Buy
DREAMWORKS ANIMATION INC
DWA
500 34.68 (17,338.47)
02/28/2014
Pending
Buy
DREAMWORKS ANIMATION INC
DWA
170 35.11 (5,968.70)
Oh man I remember VGPR. Made a good bit of money on that one a few years ago. Looks like one of the few companies I traded that hasn't shut down or had management arrested due to illegal pump and dump promotion lol. Why the hell is it up so much? Not seeing any news.
Damn I'm getting that trading itch again. I'm going to get that EquityFeed trial going and do some paper trading next week. NoLove, just to clarify, you use the TD Ameritrade platform and actually execute trades with Fidelity, correct? So you have an unfunded Ameritrade account for platform access?
FINALFANTASYDOG
Member
and I'm out in pre-market, total damage for the day added up to $26.5k ugh..., at least I have tax write-offs for the next 9 years!
If I had stuck the same amount of money into Telsa/target/pandora/macys pretty much any company at the end of yesterday and tried to play day-trading like a normal boy, I'd be up 1.5 K for the two days!
If I had stuck the same amount of money into Telsa/target/pandora/macys pretty much any company at the end of yesterday and tried to play day-trading like a normal boy, I'd be up 1.5 K for the two days!
Hahahaha yeah it's a total scam but it will run super hard with the upcoming PR + shareholder update. The float is small as hell. Hemp news is going to send this soaring.
I use TD Ameritrade for my level 2, yeah (cause I like it.) and execute trades with Fidelity. Yep.
BTW had a really good day today... made $700 off UTRM, and $3k off DSCR... Now I just need further news on VGPR so I can make an extra $20k on that with my free shares. Bring it to me, baby! I want to end the week with $30k+ profit. *crosses fingers*
Ether_Snake
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Never sell companies you still believe in. I learned this the hard way: SCTY, TLSA, ADSK. All stuff I got rid of when I shouldn't have, and knew I shouldn't, thinking I would catch them lower later. What a miss
DDD earnings friday. Might be a good opportunity for me to add to if it drops, although I did recently.
DDD earnings friday. Might be a good opportunity for me to add to if it drops, although I did recently.
Cow Mengde
Banned
I've been eying DDD for a while too.
So the new penny stock scam du jour is a press release that says something of the effect of "bullshitbullshit HEMP AND/OR MARIJUANA bullshitbullshit" and then the share price triples in an hour? I'm down with that. Not quite as ambitious as everybody being a fake algae based biofuel company like it was a few years ago but you can't argue with the results.
That covers DSCR and UTRM, but I'm still confused about VGPR. I gathered from (shudder) InvestorsHub that the company is teasing a hemp news press release (like you said), but nothing has actually been made public yet. What was the impetus for taking your initial position in VGPR?
FINALFANTASYDOG
Member
So, did anyone get in on the JC-Penny or Zulily surges? Seeing things like that make me think swing trading is really possible.
NOLOVE - how did VGPR work out for you? notice it's up 66% today
NOLOVE - how did VGPR work out for you? notice it's up 66% today
Yes. You got it all right.
My impetus? An extremely good trader I am good friends with and play stocks with every damn day (he averages $30-50k/month) told me to grab it. I watched it, grabbed a ton at 0006. Today, we knew it would run again, we added to our positions at 0013-0015. There was a 9+ million wall on the ask that we knocked down. Run started from there.
Close was 0030.Tomorrow it should go 0050+ with ease, thanks to the float and heavy volume that's sure to come in. I think this goes 0100 (1 cent) if news comes this week and next week, so I'll hold 2-3 million shares.
There are others that ran recently (DEWM, TTDZ, LATF) tht have HUGE floats and still went multi-pennies. TTDZ has been running lately with 3x larger float than VGPR and with no real news.
VGPR has a great chance of going 1c+. My opinion. I will unload a lot of shares tomorrow and make a solid $20-30k, watch it from there and ride out free shares. Watch it on Level 2 and tell me what you think.
This is just my analysis of the situation, I don't advise anyone playing it unless you know what you're doing. For those of you that do, this is easy, big money.
Doing great. Riding 6.2 million shares and plan to sell in the 0040-0050's tomorrow with the right catalyst. If not, I'll be selling in the 30's. I did email the CEO and he told me a shareholder update/news is coming tomorrow so... yeah.
Ether_Snake
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Doing great. Riding 6.2 million shares and plan to sell in the 0040-0050's tomorrow with the right catalyst. If not, I'll be selling in the 30's. I did email the CEO and he told me a shareholder update/news is coming tomorrow so... yeah.
Isn't that insider trading?
FINALFANTASYDOG
Member
Just because there is an announcement doesn't mean anything! It could be anything! Ether_snake, After realizing the full severity of my 26k loss, what do you think about just investing in a a VFINX that matches the S & P 500, 126% returns over 5 years isn't shabby at all.... I don't want to risk myself on momentum shares anymore (thinking of getting out of amazon.com tomorrow and putting it all in VFINX)
It scares me to no end that I still have up to $120,000 in margin buying power.
That there WILL be an announcement isn't public information though. -cough-
There's a pretty big difference between "there will be a press release tomorrow" and "here are the contents of tomorrow's press release including material nonpublic information." Of course, one could argue that just the existence of a press release is a significant piece of information in OTC markets but ultimately the SEC could not give less of a shit.
Thanks for the info NoLove. So what does it take to get on your friend's mailing list? Lol. Hell of a good call on VGPR. Got my Ameritrade account set up and I'll be studying the level 2 on VGPR tomorrow. TradeArchitect is pretty snazzy.
Ether_Snake
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I think tracking the S&P is good, but don't put everything in it. Make monthly contributions to a few funds, somewhere between three to five.
Why not VOO instead? It's the same but as an ETF, and the expense ratio is lower.
I'd say 60% in S&P, 25% developed markets (which exclude the US, like VEA), and maybe the remaining 15% in total world stock like VXUS.
Just an example, you could go safer I guess with some bonds in there. I don't like giving precise advice
Just stay in safer stuff than stock picking, contribute at a fixed date, same amount each time unless your income grows. Don't invest at other times.Can someone please explain to me why the Overall return in my google portfolio differs from my gains, when I haven't made any contributions/withdrawals to/from my cash balance?
Like, (current-initial)/initial gives me the value that's listed as gains (which I think is accurate), whereas the overall return is listed as lower?
Like, (current-initial)/initial gives me the value that's listed as gains (which I think is accurate), whereas the overall return is listed as lower?