Joined: May 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 972 Location: VAC lounge
Anyone here an active trader? « Thread Started on Feb 4, 2009, 2:11pm »
I'm a trader that sticks mostly to stocks, funds, and options but I'm open to discuss other trading styles as well.
Anyone here trade the markets?
Or if anyone has questions I can answer those too
but really, I like to bounce my ideas off others.
For example, in one of my auto traders discussion lines they had a member bring up trading Iron Condors on commodities or futures. I'm not sure if that's even possible or at all prudent. Although it does get me curious >D
Joined: Oct 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 1,512 Location: San Jose, CA
Re: Anyone here an active trader? « Reply #1 on Feb 4, 2009, 2:42pm »
I've been an advisor to a couple friends of mine, like recommending getting stocks in green companies since Obama's in office, but I'm still not entirely in the loop on everyone they're investing in. Myself, I used to have stock, but then I sorta jumped the gun after WaMu went belly-up though, so in a sense, I'm shadowing the stocks for others.
Joined: May 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 972 Location: VAC lounge
Re: Anyone here an active trader? « Reply #2 on Feb 4, 2009, 2:52pm »
Yeah, I had a ton of people talk to me thinking that WM was a steal of a deal and I kept telling them to wait until big money started to move back into the industry and company. In the end many got burned and it was the regulatory office, OTS, fault too.
The whole "green company" thing would take some research. Just because it's green doesn't mean its going to be managed well or that the board will look out for its shareholders.
Personally, I find investing into individual stocks old hat and I've stuck mostly to options supplementing my etf and fund holdings.
For example, you can own SPY, an ETF that tracks the S&P 500, and lets say you own 100 shares.
You buy at 89, so $8900. It goes up to 90 so you make $100, not bad but nothing to gawk at. You can sell a call at 90 that expires in a month for 400. Lets say the S&P goes down to 88 a month later. You lost $100 on the stock but thanks to the call you're actually up $300 and still own 100 shares. You can do this month after month.
Granted that's an income strategy, but it really helps when you're trying to hedge against a stagnant underlying that has been going nowhere.
Right now I have some plays on the Russel 2000. its at 448 or so and I have a verticle spread at 520. Basically, the longer it stays below 520 the more I make. Max gain on this one is like 30% or something.
Yeah, I had a ton of people talk to me thinking that WM was a steal of a deal and I kept telling them to wait until big money started to move back into the industry and company. In the end many got burned and it was the regulatory office, OTS, fault too.
The whole "green company" thing would take some research. Just because it's green doesn't mean its going to be managed well or that the board will look out for its shareholders.
Personally, I find investing into individual stocks old hat and I've stuck mostly to options supplementing my etf and fund holdings.
For example, you can own SPY, an ETF that tracks the S&P 500, and lets say you own 100 shares.
You buy at 89, so $8900. It goes up to 90 so you make $100, not bad but nothing to gawk at. You can sell a call at 90 that expires in a month for 400. Lets say the S&P goes down to 88 a month later. You lost $100 on the stock but thanks to the call you're actually up $300 and still own 100 shares. You can do this month after month.
Granted that's an income strategy, but it really helps when you're trying to hedge against a stagnant underlying that has been going nowhere.
Right now I have some plays on the Russel 2000. its at 448 or so and I have a verticle spread at 520. Basically, the longer it stays below 520 the more I make. Max gain on this one is like 30% or something.
Who do you favor as a broker?
Oh no I don't mean any green company, more along the lines of eco-friendly investments that people will actually take note on. But so far, he's staying with his current investments.
Though when companies stocks are staying neutral, and not really moving, generally even if it goes up a wee bit, I've tended to wait them out. Greedy move, yes I'd say it was, because often times I would sell out after stocks go down a lot of points after going up a few. With me, my financial situation at the time was a lot worse than it is today, so I wasn't able to really regulate when to suck it up and when to bail out.
As for broker, I've never hired one truthfully. My folks do I believe, me, I just read up on Michael Kramers' book and watched his show a bit before getting sick of hearing that bastard speak. So I don't exactly have one I'd favor or recommend to anybody. And my mom's broker, I believe has been Charles Schwab for the past couple years. My dad used to have stocks with Schwab but he just sold his stocks at less than what he paid and called it quits there. Sorta what happened to me too.
*Like father like son sort of deal....which blows.*
Joined: May 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 972 Location: VAC lounge
Re: Anyone here an active trader? « Reply #9 on Feb 7, 2009, 3:33pm »
BigK, perfectly natural to have that experience. Yet tragic. It's actually a psychological phenomenon. Investors will buy high and sell low when their very intention is the opposite. To put it simply, when your investments do well you don't want to sell, and when they do poorly you just want to get out as soon as possible. (King of Queens did an episode on that, pretty funny) Basically, if you don't have any clear goals and don't understand how the market works, investing can be a pretty costly learning experience.
I personally hate agents and advisers that charge for their advice. A lot of them are simply sub par, but it's how they're trained. A broker is merely the company that you use to place trades for you; weather you use an agent or not is up to you.
Dankscarver, marketing ay? interesting that they would teach anything in depth on stocks or investing.
If you want to know anything I'd be happy to fill you in
As for the basics, it's important to know what stock is. I am always surprised by how many people will buy a stock without realizing what the point of stock is.
In short, a stock refers to a share of ownership in a company. In essence, it gives you the ability to get some of the profit the company (hopefully) receives from its business.
There are different kinds of stock (common, preferred, convertible) but most people that don't know too much about stocks are buying common stock.
Common stock gives you voting rights in the company, and the company gives dividends (pay out money from profits) to shareholders whenever they see fit.
The price of common stock fluctuates based on demand. Basically, the more people want a certain stock the higher the price goes. A good example would be google, when it first offered stock so many people wanted a piece of the pie that it went from $100 a share to 300 in no time.
Now, the price is supposed to reflect the worth of the company and the expected profits. As we've seen recently, the true force behind investors (fear and greed) can push prices beyond reasonable levels which is why technical analysis is so widely used. (the study of charts, patters, price movement, etc.)
Joined: Jun 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 955 Location: Tucson AZ
Re: Anyone here an active trader? « Reply #10 on Feb 8, 2009, 1:01pm »
Yep, it looks like I pretty much know the basics of Stocks. My class showed an instructional video on the life Cycle of a Successful business. It was pretty interesting. It was about a Fish sales men, and a Hair Stylist, in the middle of the ocean. The Hair Stylist went out of business due to poor location choice, and the fish salesmen started making all sorts of money. Well, the Hair Stylist had the knowledge of advertising and self-promotion, so the two companies merged. Slowly growing, they became a corporation. Once they became a corporation, they started offering Stock Options at 5 Dollars a share. Then they went into something about buying a five dollar share now and in 10 years, getting 50 dollars back. And then they went into the power that each shareholder had, saying that shareholders hold the outcome of some parts of the corporation. Then some rich lady killed a guy for his stocks and the video ended o_o.
But yha, my class just pretty much covers the basics off all things about Marketing. Owning a Business, Stocks, owning a Franchise and stuff like that. Advanced Marketing is supposed to go into A LOT more information, and then In college I take another marketing class, and supposedly, by the time I get out I'm a Guru of Business.
Joined: May 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 972 Location: VAC lounge
Re: Anyone here an active trader? « Reply #11 on Feb 12, 2009, 12:06am »
Hah, amusing way to illustrate business. Did they address the high growth and cash flow issues found in the early part of the cycle? Or was it more focused on types of business and merger transactions?
I wonder if they'll go into technical analysis in that marketing class.
Hard to believe a marketing class will have much more than a fundamental focus.
Hah, amusing way to illustrate business. Did they address the high growth and cash flow issues found in the early part of the cycle? Or was it more focused on types of business and merger transactions?
I wonder if they'll go into technical analysis in that marketing class.
Hard to believe a marketing class will have much more than a fundamental focus.
It focused around the life cycle of a business, from small to corporation. It was quite amusing.
Right now, the marking class is making us come up with an idea for a product, and making an infomercial on it. I should a lot of fun with that =3.
If she lets us keep the video (and it is what I think it is), I'll let you all see it ^^.
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