Okay but think about this. Since the stock only has to move half as far to get out at a profit as it does to make a loss is it not twice as likely to get to a profit first?(Although you do need risk management, I think stops are a poor way to do it) Why would anyone trade with Scottrade? All kind of useless bells and whistles. Who do you think pays for those branches? If you are going to trade use a real broker like Interactivebrokers.
I use Scottrade. They are "OK". I really don't know how they won those JD Power awards, though. Their streamer sucks at the moment. Plus, they don't offer premarket trading. But I "hear" they are working on improving. As far as your trading, why don't you use this journal for hypothetical trades? That is what I do, I spend about 4-5 hours a day monitoring hypothetical trades which I post in advance here. Yeah, its boring, but I learn sooo much from it. I have improved my knowledge drastically as a result. Post a few stocks that you would buy, your intended stop, target, reasoning, etc, then let people comment. Its a great way to learn. Good luck to you.
Will IB make sense for me even if I only trade a small amount and infrequently? I only trade about 100 shares at a time.
I have done trading without using my money(paper) for a couple of months, and i agree it does help. BTW i am impressed with your results.
With IB 1000 shares carries a $5 commission. With Scottrade 1000 shares is $7. You should only trade 100 shares at a time anyways until your really good. With IB 100 carries a $1 commission. Also with IB you get direct access to the market. IB ever shows you how they route your order. With scottrade it is quite likely that they on fill order order after they know they can take the other side with a profit.
Is there a minimum to trade monthly? I wouldn't consider myself an active trader. Anyways-i'll check it out and if it looks good i'll switch-thanks for the input!
Stops are a poor way? To me, I have to know the amount I am willing to risk on a trade if it goes against me. Without using stops, how else do you get out of the trade? You could sit and watch it get to your risk limit and then close out the position manually, but thats still a stop. Maybe I misunderstood your comment. Please explain.
With the VIX at about 12 and equity markets that tend to retrace itself over and over I feel that using a long option to limit risk is far better than using stop loss orders. There are thousands of posts here complaining about "chop", meaning that that people keep getting stopped out before their position turns around in their favour. The other way to trade from a limited risk position is to use spreads. For example you could go long dec Canadian Dollar and short march. Eurodollar interest rate contracts are probably the best for spreading electronically as they have a lot of volume in multiple months.
Yesterday-bought ADBE @ 28.88-100 shares-$7 commision Stop set @ 28.20 Looking good at 29.76 today! I'll get out shortly and take my profit-small steps first for me from now on.