Daytrading Favorites

Discussion in 'Trading' started by KevinK, Jun 27, 2005.

  1. KevinK

    KevinK Guest

    Hey Everyone,
    I was wondering if there was a pattern of favorite stocks to daytrade. It seems that there are some traders still daytrading the MSFTs, LUs and CSCOs and I don't know how one could make much money doing such. Personally, I look for stocks making sizeable moves based on price or volume then I use a few indicators and follow it a few minutes then either make a move or take it off my watchlist. What do all of you do?
     
  2. apharris

    apharris

    Buy Google, preferably as it crosses from below to above a moving average, your choice. I like the 20 period EMA. Trail yourself out. Rinse. Repeat.

    http://allallan.blogspot.com/
     
  3. EBenson

    EBenson

    well,as they say old love never dies so i still trade some of the semis even tho the semis are not much of movers as of late, im still sticking with some of them like BRCM;PMCS;XLNX;ALTR and the 3 amigos(AMAT&KLAC&NVLS).
    RIMM is a stock that gets every now and then nice moves in both directions(so far this year) and i think is really worth watching even if it is not moving much on a particular day.
    INTC used to be volatile the past year and since it has a very big volume it was great to trade.
    as of CSCO...well i havent really traded much that stock,only a couple of times quite sometime ago when it was like $50 or so,i think ive only lost money on CSCO...now just watching it as a "guide/major" stock for market/sector sentiment and blahbla.
    Other than that as a trader i think you gotta go with the darlings of the day like GOOG and the like this year.

    If a day really turns out to be a very "sleepy" one a trader can always trade some Qs or other indexes...or you can just do something else...i think most traders learn in the first 1-2 years of trading that you have never to push yourself to trade.
    -
    I personally always stop trading when in doubt or when not in good physical condition so that i can fully concentrate when i trade or when some private stuff is going through my mind...there is always another day,another week,month,trend to trade.:mad:
     
  4. Not everyone trades 100 share lots with a 5k account like you. :) Some are trading with 500k-1M worth of buying power so when you trade 20k shares of MSFT, a 5 cent move and your up 1k. You catch that 2 or 3 times a day and your looking at a half million dollar a year income. I dont know about you but someone living off 500k a year is doing ok in my book.
     
  5. That is about the most smartest thing one can do....I'm involved in horse racing (even though I won't post or get involved in the horse racing thread going on here) and the same goes for gamblers as it does for traders....there will always be another race or another stock and another day.....and I also try an live by the rule: When in doubt, Don't Do It!

    Good Post!
     
  6. KevinK

    KevinK Guest

    Let's take personal attacks on me and make up account values because I don't find value in trading for minimal gains with maximum slippage. Since my account is so small how come the 6k shares of IIJI i bought at 7.40 i sold at 7.80, thats a .40 gain on a $7 stock not a .05 gain on a $25 stock, and less slippage because I'm not trading as many shares as the guy trying to make a grand on a .05 move. Explain to me why the logic of making bigger gains with less slippage led you to infer I had a small account value?
    I made the same amount of money as the guy whose buying 25,000 share blocks of microsoft while trading a cheaper stock, with less shares and less slippage.
    BTW I wouldn't be able to daytrade with $5,000.
    Bad inference.
     
  7. Ok so you got your 15k account with 3:1 leverage on e-trade then :p heh heh To answer your questions its all about risk. I once bought an OTCBB stock a long long time ago with 10k and sold it later that day for a $7,365 profit. Does that mean i should trade stocks like that all the time to get those kind of returns? No...i would get creamed eventually. Personnally i think you got lucky today with IIJI...everyone made money on it and the fact that you only made .40 on a stock that moved up 1.47 today shows that it was pure luck. And how do you figure less slippage on IIJI than MSFT. Just going by today, you would have to trade Approx 36,000 shares of MSFT to equal about the same slippage as 6,000 shares of IIJI. And besides i said 20k shares of msft not 25k as you try to pad it up to make your view look more favorable.
    Like i was saying about risk...when you have a 50k trading account and are getting 10:1 or 20:1 leverage, you dont want to pick stocks that are highly volatile.
     
  8. KevinK

    KevinK Guest

    I guess it depends on what you consider luck and your risk tolerance. Indeed I lose some trades and win some trades but that doesn't make it luck, because I have been profitable for just about 2 years, and a 2 year luck spree is inpractical. If you would prefer risking a ton of your account to make small pennies on each share, go for it especially if you can do it. My account is over 500k so I have the ability to trade that way, but I don't see it as the most practical...Good luck trading
     
  9. Yeah, spoken like an original, current papertrader.


     
  10. KevinK

    KevinK Guest

    Want to post your account summary to prove all your buying power?
     
    #10     Jun 27, 2005