Added 10k to the account last month. I mostly buy support on stocks I recognize and try to catch them going down. I am scared to accumulate too many shares - I think I had 300 shares of Ross on a big down day and was down 1 grand. That is a little uncomfortable. That and I notice a lot of unrelated stocks seem to move in tandem - both Ross and Starbucks would be either green or red very consistently... I'm doing well selling shares on the good up days than buying stocks that are dropping. You just never know how long it will last, and I don't really like stocks that I don't recognize, so that means if they keep dropping... I don't want to stay drawn down for long. At the top are my current positions. Looks like I was up about 1.7k for July.
Really good month; holding for daily swings seems almost too easy. It feels bad waiting through draw-downs sometimes. I have noticed most stocks seem to run in tandem, even if they are in different sectors...on red days, every stock I'm holding is red. Big goal is not holding a loser too long or when price keeps smashing support selling at least part of the position. I didn't do a really good job with trade management this month. I could have bought more shares on winners when prices were going down/up but I was too scared. Also scared of bigger boys like NVDA, NFLX and APPL though they are just going up up up. I'm reminded of my days of day trading, always thinking "it can't go higher..." while I sit here as a buyer only. In the past month I only took a loss on one stock. Also to note, all the stocks I was holding last month I exited too early. Could still be holding even 100 shares of SHAK and SBUX...
I think I threw away around 1k trying to buy NKLA and OSTK... both were hanging around major support areas. Mon and Tue were pretty big draw-down days. Everything I was holding which is like 7 stocks now was down. I just wanted to pat myself on the back today for these losers and how I cut them. I knew OSTK hasn't broken it's major channel yet, but it looked like it was being accumulated for a possibly rally today. At the open I noticed weakness and decided to cut the loss. NKLA has just been chopping around in a range for over a week. Was strong into the open today, but then just got flushed down the toilet. I still am holding 100 shares. I've noticed many stocks don't seem to respect levels that were clearly important before. This makes it hard to determine when to buy a selloff and when to sell rallies. There also seems to be a consistent daily pattern to all stocks such as down down up. Or consolidated up consolidate. Basically, after 1-2 up days, I should be selling some or 2 days of selloff, expect a rally.
Still an up month, but lost about 1300 on NKLA. There was a day last week or two I was down 2k+. I took some positions right before market dipped hard. I think I got most of it back as there was of course a rally the next couple of days. Of course since I am perfect, I could hold some of the trades a while longer... but I tend to take them off when I feel there has been a good rally or 2 up days. Trends don't seem to last much longer than that and there will always be bad days to buy again. Guess I can't gripe since I haven't had a down month. I have 1100 shares of various stocks open still and up about 700 today, which I think is not realized on this statement. Might lose all that Thur/Fri though. I'm still too scared to touch stocks like ZM, DOCU, MSFT, TWLO... I rather just trade the Qs but you still lose money quick if you are wrong. It feels easier to implement this kind of trading when stocks are slow and grindy. I have my favorites like ROST, SBUX that move quick and far.
Did some really shitty shit this month. Last Friday, I bought more oil stock (200 shares, XOM, COP). Never in my 11 years have I considered fundamentals... but I really need to. I think the biggest problem is COVID. I bailed out of USO thankfully, but I have been holding LYFT for too long. Gut told me to sell out 200 shares around $26... It's pretty obvious with the pandemic and oil demand is low and these types of ride sharing have lost a lot of demand. Need to look at EPS and all that now. This close to the election, I should have been more careful. I remember watching the futures in 2016... it was wild to say the least. Stocks have been getting dumped hard. Not even tech is safe!! More red days than ever! I need to pay attention to the indexes... they would have warned me!! ES futures have been heading down off the highs since 10/12. My plan... not buying anything until I have some indication of stabilization for a while. Will sell a little on the rallies when they come. I have the liquidity to accumulate a lot more. I deposited another 10k. I believe a good buying time will come soon (TM). Account will be around 50k. "Everyone is a genius in a bull market."
Feels like dumb luck; I was holding 800 shares of oil stock yesterday. I woke up and in the morning was up about 4k. I got a little aggressive and took some positions in TLRY and ACB. I really should have waited for today as cheap stocks usually sell off after a few rally day. I only have 100 shares of each. I'll just wait for the decline to stop, add more and then sell the rally! I remember watching TLRY when it was in the 100s.. boy. Be careful with these small stocks, they rally then sell off most of the time.
Getting a little more aggressive... compared to day trading this is easy. Not really much to say. If I stick to low cost stocks and wait for pops, there is nearly 0 risk in holding? A lot of my positions I could hold longer. Watching the indexes it seems things are really overbought (so be cautious)... it's not as if I'm buying much over 50$.
Did some really stupid things last month; I continued getting too aggressive and entered some really bad trades where stocks were at the top of their ranges. I cut some of my positions when I realized I was heavily into the EV sector. The biggest problem has been NKLA and HYLN. I am also trying to read more about the fundamentals but it is hard to find useful info. If I had seen some of the things written about NKLA stock months ago, I probably wouldn't have been heavy into EVs. Currently holding about -5k (mostly HYLN and NKLA) and account high was around 58k. Doesn't matter, doesn't effect my lifestyle, and I have other things going on and am going to be careful for a while. Not averaging down till I see stability.
Got completely out of EV stocks and recovered most of the -6k. Recently, there has been so much hype and most big stock action is due to meme chatter that will never hold up (KOSS, BB, BBBY, etc); therefore pointless in holding long term [over a year]. Didn't touch GME; but some of the other smaller $ meme stocks... which of course all sold off. I am only in 100 share of each so who cares. I was already watching WSB before the GME situation... regardless, most of it is just worthless chatter. It's hilarious as these young clowns are still saying hold as GME continues to crater. For tax reasons and to stop trading much, I am starting a longer term foundation of just accumulating good dividend stocks both for tax and long term (PFE, LUMN, V, T etc) with good fundamentals that don't move much. In a few years I'll have net liq over 1M so... better than letting it slowly burn it in a dumbass bank. Currently down about 2k on those dumb stocks and less so on the dividend ones.