I got an account w/margin right when I turned 18. My initial balance that i deposited was 7500. Never heard of the rule... Edit: The account was under my own name as well.
I recently had a simple, but profound revalation with regards to my real account. I have been trading against a pretty strong headwind given scottrade's commissions. For instance, if I take the SRCL position in my real account with about 3000 dollars, my R:W becomes pretty unacceptable according to my own standards. To use a decent stop, I would practically have to assume that a 5-6 point jump will be in course for the next move and that will barely cut my R:W guidelines. Two comments about this... if trading breakouts I will need to trade stocks with narrower ranges allowing for shorter stops if using my real account. Furthermore, with a small account, it appears to make a lot more sense to trade puillbacks w/good r:w... therefore it actually appears my initial assumping of breakouts having better r:w is only consistent if I am trading stocks with a narrower range... I will be revising my strategy for these details tomorrow.
A few plays that I entered some limit orders for last night on my paper account. Got lucky through ignorance... the paper account has limit orders, but they are not stop limit orders, so I got the price of all my stocks on my list, pre-entry level and they all hit my buy point. Nothing to do with skill... Also... still holding onto SRCL... pulling back today from breakout level on relatively low volume. Waiting till it hits 90 to bank 1st half of shares. This execution was done going in early... but once again it was not using a limit stop order and so in this case I got a worse fill. The reason I'm buying chap is because if it doesn't break down at this level and continues up from this point, it has a higher chance of breaking the old high. Not usually what I would catch on a pullback... but the bars and the formation in general were pretty tight and I believe I can play this one relatively well.
Also... reflecting on my near sightedness... when the market took a dip in February I made some money going short on two stocks(goog and hlys), but instead of prepping for the next round i was too focused on the downside. I noticed nearly all of the stocks I am buying long now at higher prices were not breaking down, but rather consolidating near already all time highs. Missed some good buying opps...
Took half profits on GNA because I got in at a better price than predicted so cut my first price target short a little. Took half profits on FRPT over my price target. So far, so good. But, just as always I make money on paper and somehow manage to not duplicate results in my account. Will continue to trade this way until I am more confident to deposit more money in my account. Still have half of my position (profitable) in CEDC in my real account. I don't have a feel for the stock and am thinking of bailing tomorrow but would like some advice first. I get shaken out of stocks a lot on my real account because I get impatient. I see that its not performing exactly how i want it to and I want to get out and go to the next thing. This stock was originally played as a pullback but now is forming a upwardly biased W... seems like a new strategy is in order in this one and perhaps I should bank all of my shares now, and I can always rebuy higher. I just don't like the pattern anymore. Any ideas? I am second guessing my intuition to exit simply because normally I get out too soon and pay for it later.
Goodluck to ya. I started trading just about a year ago now when I was 19 also. It's also my summer break right now so its nice to have allll day to trade. I have become more consistant at making profitable stock trades as time has gone on. I found the key for me to be that I have a watchlist of around 60 stocks, and about half of them I follow pretty closely (I pay little attention to the other 8000+ that are out there and only stick to a few industries). It helps me understand the cause/effect of their price fluctuations and gives me the confidence to buy the dips and sell the strength etc. because I really know whats going on with the stock and have data points already in my head for it. If anything, just buying stocks that have recently been hurt, but are in a longterm uptrend, have been my best trades. Most of the time for me, less is more! When I overtrade I dont do as well as I could have. After all this time in this bullmarket I still haven't reached profitability though. If it weren't for a couple big screw-ups (that I will always remember the lessons learned from at least) I would be deep into the green. Starting to dabble in trading index futures a couple months ago has also set me back a little bit, but like with the stock trading, I hope to figure out a style that works for me. My major at school is Mechanical Engineering, so I realize that this is really just a thing to explore while I'm still able to. I think my main goal from it all at this point is to get consistant at longer-term position trades in both stocks AND the index futures. This way I can work my full time job and have capital working for me at the same time. The daytrades are just to pull in some extra cash til the next semester starts
That's cool. I think you and I are in a similar boat then. I try to stick to a small list based on fundamental scans scanning the best performing companies in the best performing industries... although I don't necesarily buy on dips and sell highs. Most of my long trades are based on what I consider to be pullbacks that meet my trading criteria. Most of my shorts are the exact opposite of my pullback positions. I only play long when the market is above 20,50,100,and 200 dmas, and switch gears with MA crossovers and price crossovers and etc. I too am seeking to successfully position trade. I am not that interested in intraday stuff right now even though I do love the market. I have other ways of making decent income even now and hope to do a little of what I love and make money doing it. If it ever turns out to be more than that, I will also be happy. But it is a long road as I'm sure you've already realized. Also, I am saving futures for when I am consistently profitable in equities.
Noticing that a lot of charts on my scans are forming cup and handle breakout patterns. 90% of my scanned stocks have been performing breakouts as predicted when the patterns have been easily readable. Getting out of CEDC tomorrow and maybe taking a position in DSX if can get to a computer quickly enough. Really like the formation... This stock is not part of my fundie scan list, but I cannot abandon this chart.. simply looks too good/readable. Buying half positions of AIRM and DSX on my paper account as well. Trading half because they are not "fundamentally" what my plan says to buy. Therefore, keeping the risk a little lower.
Feeling a bit bad for quitting the CEDC trade. Had a pretty good hunch that it was going to hold/break the middle of the small W... but once again got out too early even after I told myself that one of my main pitfalls is not staying in a stock long enough to catch the move... Just got to exercise discipline better, as always.