i think the others are right to suggest caution. no one wants to see you go through a painful blowup, and i think a lot of us speak from experience on that one....i would suggest trading smaller at first, something you feel you have a grip on, not necessarily aapl, and keep meticulous records to analyze the trade once it's done. figure out the potential downside before you put on the trade.
I suggest you think through how you will exit your position rapidly if it goes against you. Putting on a big position isn't the problem, getting rid of it is. Seriously, if you are a total newbie just out of paper trading, start with 100-200 shares. It doesn't matter how big your account is. You don't want to ruin your head with some huge loss, which can easily happen in a stock like this. Look at the way it traded this past week. No real logic to the moves, but they were big enough to hurt.
exactly. that's the problem with aapl and all the most actives not affected by news; movements dont make much sense and charts patterns are deceivin' as hell...u may see a green bar shootin' up and u think it is momo but after one minute that very same bar turns red leavin' a long tail behind. this is typical stuff with aapl and there ain't no way to predict it. if u wanna make money in stocks i suggest u to scan a dozen every day and find charts that have short consecutive bars, makin' higher/lower highs/lows and gyrate with some predictability, no huge shadows and NOT humongous volumes: competition on less popular issues is not anywhere near as tough. and yeah, forget about 25 lots at a click for gawd sake, dont commit more than 50shares 'till u know u are consistent: dont make sense at all to throw good money after bad when the mkt is still there tomorrow and u can slowly grow as a trader without bumpin' into huge psychological [and material, ror!] losses. as aaa said the mental impact of a series of consecutive losses can hit u so hard u may never recover.