Keep going bro. Have you changed your broker or use the same ? I think they are charging you a bit too much. If you plan on swing trading, don't take profit too soon. Do this, when you enter a position, imagine yourself on a train going a long with several others. If a train going in the wrong direction, and your hunch tells you that another is going in the right direction, the make that jump. Keep an eye out for good stocks of the same price range so you can switch from one to the other, it's like holding on a stock, but ... Must be in the same price range for it to work. Get a broker such as IB or Cyber exchange, charging .005 a share, and buy 100 shares only for each trade. Don't expose yourself by trading big lots. If you buy 2000+ at a time and hold, maybe you should choose that plan $4.95 per trade up to 4000 shares. Options is tempting but chances are, you will lose money. Buy calls only when a stock is in the red, for 3 days straight, along with indices being red that day . And VIce Versa, buy puts when market jumps 3 days in a row.. You are going to find that you make money holding TOFT for 2-3 years more than if you jump in and out trading, winning and losing all the time with several stocks. But I bet you 1000 to 1 that people like us will never have the patience to do that. We want action. That's why we blew up. Plus, it seems that Finding next Google to hang on and make 1000 percent in a year is not as easy as jumping in and out, so people think. And that's why we blew up.
yeah i think you are right about all that. I did change brokers and lucky for me they give me the T + 3 rule so i cant really overtrade. I pay 7 dollars per trade flat rate, and no monthly fees or no in-activity fees now. After seeing SIRI fly for the last 2 days I think my 30 $4 dollars PUTs are about to be "put" in the garbage. Luckily they didnt cost me that much. But you never know....july 21 is quite a ways away and thursday is big bad FED day.
Ok...I am ending the month of June early. Why am i doing this? Because i just added another 1k to my account and i dont want to have to do the math at the end of the month to find out what my return is. Starting balance $17,500 Ending balance $18,180.19 Return for the month (actually just under 3 weeks) is 3.88% Better a positive than negative
Added to my account +1000 My goal is to save enough every month to keep adding 1000 after 1000, until my account is big enough that my deposits dont really make a difference. Old Balance +$18,180.19 New Balance +$19,180.19
Bought 20 CSCO july puts @ .45 I overpaid, but didnt think CSCO would break 20 today. Thought that gap up would be followed by a decline like usual and i would be out of the trade same day. Didnt work out that way but I will probably be out of this play by end of week with break-even or small profit.
So you initially said you weren't going to use margin, right? So based on that, your first position consumed $17395 out of your $17.5? Ummm... are you aware of the fact that you should not be risking more than xx% of your total capital on any one trade? Have you ever heard about anything like that in reading posts on these boards? If your plan was to not use margin, what is it that made you change your plans? Why did you initially make the decision to leave margin alone? You mentioned that you are not using stops because this is not a technical trade. Are you aware of the fact that using stops doesn't have anything to do with the trade entry being technical or fundamental? Stops are related to that aspect of trading called 'risk management'. Capital allocation (% of capital at risk/trade) is also a part of risk management. Use of margin is also a part of risk management. Maybe it would help us if you were to outline in detail your risk management strategy, so that you can get some feedback on it, and possibly avoid another blowout. At least you sound like you're telling the truth about your trades which is extremely rare on these boards.
Peil....what are you doing? Trading is not a game! It's obvious you don't have an edge, then why are you trading? Are you an action junkee? STOP.....figure out your strategy first. Understand it completely before pissing away your hard earned money. Education can't hurt. Get some education and/or find a mentor, or you will piss away this 18 grand as well. Good luck!
Sounds like your gambling to me....have you tried the flip a coin approach. Heads buy calls....and definately pay the spread. Tails buy puts....and definately pay the spread. If you keep doing what you're doing...you will piss away this money as well. Come on peil....get it together.
Hi Peil Can you give us some more information on this. Your reason for ceasing trading activities is that you don't want to do a particular mathematical calculation? Would you say that the possibility that you miss a good trading opportunity in this time is outweighed by the benefit you get by not having to do this math calculation? Also, I just wonder - what is it about doing this calculation that you 'don't want to have to do'? I can't believe that you don't know how to calculate your profit/loss, even if the calculation involves two stages, one before the addition of the 1K and one after. Certainly it's easy to get a fairly accurate ballpark figure. If you need some help with this, there are plenty of people here who would help you, I'm sure.
I hate feeling like i have to explain my trades to everyone but here goes. I bought the CSCO puts because CSCO has been on a downward trend, up and down but each time going down it goes a bit lower. I didnt just flip a coin to pick this, i chose CSCO because of its liquidity, and the fact that the price doesnt go all over the place. Also...i have barely scratched my margin...im like 50 bucks into my margin...not something im going to get a margin call for and i wont go that far into my margin either. Yes i agree...it was pretty dumb to put everything into 1 stock. I pretty much figured this out about a week ago on my own, I will diversify myself once i get out of TOPT. Now for my exit. I will exit when the stock is more than i paid for it. I got my account beaten down last time because I did not(could not) wait out the bad times. If i sell every time a stock goes down thats called losing money. My stop is my confidence in the company. If i think they are going BK, then i will sell. But why sell a company for a loss when its making money? Even if it takes a year for the company to go to 8 dollars, thats still about a 13% return...beats the S&P. I think i better require posters to attach a screenshot or excel file of thier trades/returns for the year because i think half the people on here giving me advice are paper traders and dont have accounts. They just read what others have wrote and paste the same advice. After im done with this trade im going to split my holdings between 2 and 3 stocks.