any recommendation about thick stocks for new traders?

Discussion in 'Trading' started by schonfeld_trade, Sep 17, 2002.

  1. Selecting stocks are really painful jobs, but the most painful thing is not that, but find all my picks are too thin. Jusk kidding. Not so bad. But sometimes, still pick some killing stocks suck as MMM. So would you like to recommend some?
     


  2. I think someone already asked you, but are you at schonefeld as your name suggests and if so, why isn't someone showing you these things?

    IMO, You don't want stocks that are too thick, even if your new.

    You might try the credit card stocks, they have been in play (HI, COF, KRB) lately and are fairly well behaved but still volatile enough to make some money in without huge share size. They are not as thick as the brokers as far as big bids and offers (not depth of the market) and fills are usually easier since with the brokers you are competing with lots of traders whith very fast hotkeys and even some of the bright boys who like to point and click a mouse. :p

    They move well with the futures too plus if you watch them you can usually figure out early in the day which one is the leader or laggard in the group. There is no real index to go with them but the bank index is a pretty good proxy. Good group to learn on IMO.
     
  3. Thank you very much. hehe. Yeah, they do teach me. But I just don't feel enough for me. :)

    Thank you very much for your suggestion. COF is a nice stock in my mind, but last time, Nitro told me that the specialist is a seven head monster. So I am a little bit scared. But as I watched, seems that the spec from HI is worse than COF. COF is moving more smoothly. How do you think about it.

    I don't like brokage because the move is too fast. Before I get used to the system, I wanna step out of brokage stocks even if they might have a good move.

    I wanna ask you some stocks if you don't mind:
    C, AIG, XOM, GM, NOK, VZ

    Please tell me more if you guys can.
     
  4. prox

    prox

    If you're day trading, you have little choice but to trade high volume stocks..

    Do a screener for average daily volume of 5 mill + , in a price range you can afford and are comfortable with (based on your account value). Avoid narrow range stocks under $1-2 and then follow these stocks all day until you are comfortable with how they move. If you are new, I'd advise following these stocks in real time and then paper trade when your theoretical entry, exit, stop and target.

    You should try to read all you can about trading and study as many books and trading methods you can , and then try these methods while you paper trade. It is a continuous learning process, where you will find yourself being a bit wiser every single week. The key is to maintain your actual trading capital while you are learning, so when you finally understand enough of the market to be successful .. then you'll actually have a fighting chance to be profitable when trading real money.
     
  5. I recognize your stocks as being all the usual suspects for prop firm traders. Especially C, AIG, and VZ.

    What kind of trading are you doing? Are you in there for a few cents x 1mm shares, or trying to pick up a trend?

    Man, seeing you quote those stocks makes me realize how much volume during the day is completely BS. C'est la vie!

    Nitro pairs COF/HI so his needs are different than yours. I noticed he has been helping you in the trading room, so I didn't pay much attention. But I did think it odd that a prop firm trader seemed to be strategy-less. No offense please, I'm only thinking of your capital going down the tubes while some firm pseudo-teaches you to scalp.

    Unless they are paying you to be there, I'd put the brakes on that right now until you know what you want to do.
     
  6. The specialist in those will certainly burn you worse than the 6 you mentioned altough AIG has a big spread sometimes. I have never traded a lot of NYSE stocks but keep in mind this simple fact, the more liquid the name the more guys are gonna be trading it usually. What that normally means is offers and bids dissapear faster, and when the futures do make a big move a C or NOK might move 15 cents when a less liquid name will move 35-40.

    When you first start trading your still learning the nuiances of execution so new traders usually start off with longer holding periods than experienced traders so missing a price level shouldn't matter that much at first. Also when you are only in one hundred or a few hundred shares of something you can NX out or get out of any position fairly quickly. When your trading 5K shares of something on the other hand, liquidity becomes a much larger factor and then if your in a stock where the specialist suddendly drops the bid 40 cents or closes the book 1x1 for what seems like forever you got problems.

    Also you might think about WMT/TGT they trade together most of the time are more liquid than the three I orginally mentioned and there is a real edge to trading similar stocks in a sector.

    For example if your watching WMT and think it's about to go but miss the offer and it does take off, you can pull up Target and it might not have gone yet.

    A lot of people that traid pairs like this have charts with each stock on them overlayed. That wasy if your watching VZ in the background you can also see what BLS or SBC are doing.

    Hope that helped. Good luck.
     
  7. nitro

    nitro

    IMHO, I would trade GE during dead zone.

    I don't know why no one ever recommends this - I can't think of a better way to learn to trade. All the "good habits" will be formed here...

    nitro
     
  8. Whole-hearted agreement to that one. GE does everything you need to learn. And it is the only stock on the spec's post, so you will get to know his nuances.

    Nice one Nitro.
     
  9. nitro

    nitro

    During dead zone only when learning - remember...

    nitro
     
  10. WMT/TGT are a very nice pair. As a matter of fact IMO TGT L, WMT SS looks good right here.
     
    #10     Sep 18, 2002