I am not sure what you are asking. My profession is just like any. It has to fit well with you. If your interests and goals meet there may be potential to indulge further. Along this path I get confirmation that lets me know my effort is not in vain. I progress in my knowledge, understanding and skills and wrap them together to get a desirable outcome. My longer range goals are consistency and a coupling with my (philanthropic) vision makes me well with my soul. For you, I do not know. But gaining education in a few various areas would be my first step. Then if something clicks with you decide to go further in developing and applying it. That's the way I started. I put myself through college and chose Laser Engineering where I got a B.S. and a minor in Math. This met my near-term goals and was very rewarding. i enjoyed working with laser systems and for good companies that paid me well. Then I looked into investing to see if there was any potential to beat the market or otherwise put personal effort in when IRA's, company stock would do the work. I came across some ideas that made sense that if details were worked out could provide that potential. I stated paper-trading and after 3 years got some very encouraging results. I quit my profession (I was already topped out in salary) and went full-time into business. I took a few extra years since to work out some family/personal matters, yet was encouraged that the same "edge" or class of service I provide continues to be unparalleled. Recently while looking further into types of trading my futures ventures seem to yield far and beyond any promise ever. And in time - with continued success - I will use the results to attract/manage large funds with confidence this can be done for life. Then I can focus on my real goals TBD that are philanthropic. But yeah like most things in life and like what most nowadays do not realize - the answers are within you and take work - a lot of work, but in the end that is the only real reward. At least for me. GilL aka Paysense aka Gilbert FYI C2 is self-explanatory complete with lots of guidance and explanations. Study what other people are doing. . .maybe that will give you some ideas or if you are looking to subscribe to systems, read up on all the forums. I think you will see very few systems continue to provide value after 2 years. Read the others and see what NOT to look for. . .
You weren't sure what I was asking, yet you answered more questions then I originally gave you Thanks! I'll be checking in on this thread to see your updates!
Good Morning, Our weakest issues are mixed. EXM we held on to now reap a higher volume jump (institutions are picking this one back up after recent weakness in the sector) to our 100 shares. We had sold call options at the 45 strike, so the nearly 2 point appreciation moves right to the bottom line. SOLF is seeing some appreciation - but not nearly enough that we feel we want to sell the Jun calls against the stock. Will wait on this. . .for now. Meanwhile the high volume sell-off in SPF that started last Friday continued this morning. We never like when a solid position that is ITM goes directly to our stop-loss target erasing all of our gains. But stop-loss methods are for what this exact purpose. In any event, VNDA at the top of the chart wrt call option premiums is getting more stellar buying interest after reporting surprise earnings. We do not necessarily like to risk our portfolio with biotech stocks, but from time to time we do dabble. This position is now ITM and does have lower support, so we will keep a closer watch on this one and heed our stop methods if the need arises. Meanwhile the call option premiums more than make up for gains we gave up with SPF. Call it an <i>adjustment</i> that we <i>hope</i> will pan out. All in all we continue to have a very healthy market backdrop and Jun options expire in 7 weeks. <b>Monday, May 5, 2008 11:30 am EST Bought (4) SPF May 5 (SPFEA) call option contracts at $0.15 (ask). Sold 400 shares of SPF (Standard Pacific Corporation) at $4.25 (bid). Bought 400 shares of VNDA (Vanda Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) at $4.90 (ask). Sold (4) VNDA Jun 5 (QDXFA) call option contracts at $0.95 (bid). Stop Loss: $3.95</b> Paysen$e
Double commissions aren't a problem for Gilbert because he doesn't bother to include them in his paper trading performance calculations.
Nothing better to do than to make slanderous judgments and accusations against me when you do not even know me? And you like to think the worst of people? So this makes you feel better behind the cowardice veil called the Internet? Wow! QUITE pathetic. But since you open a can let me put the worms in alignment - to give a perspective on some REAL value any which way you twist it - 20k training account at XxxxxxxCapital.com allows for subscribers to follow along and learn to get comfortable with the style that will be required to manage returns that blow away any other. That limits us wrt the types of stocks we can choose from - for now. Once a year or two go by and the account is worth say 35k the subscriber can then confidently add say 65k more and that is it! Now they can manage institutional caliber stocks like BIDU, RIMM etc. that will cost more, but still be like 100 shares of this and 100 shares of that with say 7 or so stocks. Then let's say another couple years go by and you now have an account of 190k. So you can buy 200 shares in each position, however commissions will still somewhat be a factor (albeit minor compared to when we managed a 20k account). Now what is really interesting is look at our charts - say during a flat period, then a corrective phase and then a nice 50% ramp. The bar charts are fairly low in risk (day-to-day movement of account). Now let's just add zeros - say two of them or where your account will approximately be in 6 more years or $2,000,000. Now we just manage the same 7-10 stocks - buying 1000 shares of each and GENERATE THE EXACT SAME (LOW IN RISK) INVESTMENT CHART. The important point is we are not losing our shirts (like most do) and we are slowly learning how to make a high annual average - keep it - and compound it over the years. Do you really think we pay much attention to folks like GTS that may get a few other vocal idiots to spout half-truths and think they know something and are targeting "dishonest" people that aren't like them: honest (lol). Please, go look in the mirror and give the rest of us a break. Even if we fail at our endeavors (which I assure you will NOT happen), we can still look ourselves in the mirror and say we honestly tried; ) Small, large paper-traded accounts or otherwise. . .at least we know what it is we are doing. Paysen$e
Honest folk would not purposely mislead the general public for their own self interests/ego by stating half the quote:
I fail to see what you are complaining about. I said that you do not include commissions in your paper trading performance calculations. You called that "slanderous judgments and accusations" So then I posted your quote, verbatim, that states exactly what I said - you ignore commission costs in your calculations. You then say I took the quote out of context and posted additional text that does not in any way change the truth of what I posted. Your "its ok to ignore commissions" premise seems to be based on the idea that commissions become negligible as ones account size grows. That's one way to look at it. Regardless, whether that is a fair way to measure performance is not the issue - the issue I raised is that you do not factor in commission costs at all - not matter what account size you are paper trading. You have not posted anything to refuse this - are you denying it now, contradicting what you yourself wrote earlier?
The point is you don't know me and you ARE accusing me of illicit behavior or somehow not being completely transparent, which I always am. YOU asked the question about commissions and I answered and clarified it - before all. Then you come back with a half-truth regarding commissions (no we are NOT accounting for commissions) and then say all I am doing is paper-trading. Whatever it is that you are continuing to try and do is completely tiresome and just a waste of a lot of time. Go look in the mirror before you try and wear my shoes. GilL aka pay$ense PS In the future, I am sure most folk would truly appreciate a more honest dialogue that tackles the benefits/ issues of ideas put forth rather that ulterior motives like ego stroking.
A couple more points I did miss with previous trade post. SPF will be reporting earnings 12-May-2008 so getting out of this one is not a bad idea. You never know what to expect and we try and avoid any holding during these dates. And two, VNDA is a potential 21.43% winner for a 7 week holding. Again it is a biotech and occasionally we allocate (1) position towards such and hope the FDA doesn't blow it up. (See about this time how we recovered last year with DNDN). cc: mp update (Model Portfolio)