I'm afraid to go look at Delta Airlines financial info. Also, I'd hate to point this out to you, but all stocks went up today. Remember my comment about "A rising tide raises all boats." You could have bought any stock yesterday at close and made money this morning. Alcoa could have also laid off 2000 people this morning, driving your stock into the ground. Emotion is what drives the short term market.
NYSE Daily Changes:
WCI > -3.04
BEC > -8.62
GI > -.30
TVX > -1.30
ASL > -.52
PNR > -3.05
The list goes on. Yes, there were many more advancers than decliners, but still only ~ 2170 A to ~ 600 D, a 22% chance of declining with just any stock.
Delta's financials are in bad shape as far as the big picture is concerned in relation to some absolute zero. But, I don't particularly care about that, I care about the trend in Delta's financials (just for making a decision about their earnings report, not for a long term hold, although the trends are obviously useful in long term holds as well). Sure, the dow was up 4.6%, the nasdaq up 4.8%, the sp500 up 4.5%, the nyse by itself up 4.1%, but that is only 1/4 the 20% Delta was up today (10% at my time of sale). I'll hazard a guess that that 20% was not all due to a ~4% market jump, but rather a good earnings report as well.
I was doing what is commonly referred to as swing trading (1-2 week holds).
I have a set of rules I use to determine my actions in various situation, I don't do what you are talking about here - I hold 2 days max. Swing trading as you have described it (1-2 week holds) can kill anyone quickly, no matter their expertise. In a volatile market like this your stocks can easily swing +/- 15% in a week. On a day by day basis your stocks will typically swing +/- 2% or 3% max. The only exception was with my HP-Compaq position, where I broke my rule and held on. I shouldn't have done that, it was a mistake, if I would have let go of the stock I would have been out maybe $10 to $20. Instead, I hung on because the stock was currently undervalued (although not by a large amount) and it tanked lower. I let my emotions get to me that time (even though I was able to easily let go on a couple other stocks earlier that lost me $20 to $30 each)
Umm, if you make +/-3% every 2 business days, you could also make +/-15% every two weeks. Your just using the law of averages to reduce your beta in the short term. I'll use your other comments against you later. In a year, if I make 40 good/10 bad trades, you probably made 200 good/50 bad. Annualized, we'll still do the same.
Part of your investment strategy is to make 2% every 2 days. is your strategy working? Is this your strategy?
The terms day trading, intermediate term trading and swing trading should all have come up in your studies of 2 day trading, especially after doing so for 4 months. If you don't know these terms, you should do so now. After trading for 4 months, I knew something about every short-term strategy out there. Funny thing is, I havn't heard you say once, that you do what successful day traders do. I've even mentioned it to you. What do you know about Japanese Candlestick charting techniques?
The facts here are slightly skewed because of a couple reasons. First, I'm not actually day trading, and my trading is only classified as intermediate due to the time period I hold (some time between 3:30 pm and 4:00 pm to 9:30 am to 10:00 am the following day). I've tried to indicate throughout here, but I guess you didn't pick up on it - I practice hardly any day trading techniques. I don't try to pick up on intraday market trends and follow intraday indicator prices to find a point at which to buy or sell, etc. I've read a limited amount about these techniques, but all of my investigation pertains to projected earnings estimates and reported financial data. I merely play the earnings reports, that's all. Every stock I've bought (except for the first two or three when I was testing the waters) has been the afternoon before an evening/morning report. That may be why it seems like I've trailed off or that you (to me) seem somewhat off topic (in an off topic forum,
). The second reason stems from that, and it is just a matter of technique, my losing limit is not as big as my winning limit. The +/- 3% was just an average that a random stock might change in a day. First, I don't hold my stocks for the whole day. Second, I limit my loss more than I limit my win - depending on my analysis, I will cut a stock at ~ 0.5% to 1.5% loss but at ~ 2.0% to 3.0% win. That spread every two days turns into a spread of loss: 3.5% to 10.5% while win: 14% to 21% over two weeks, little better than just a straight +/- 15%. I don't have a strategy set in stone about how much I want to make over a weekly or monthly period, mainly that in the begining here I want to at least stay steady with the average market return. However, I do have set returns for each individual stock as I've mentioned previously.
Yea, so far my strategy is working. Excluding my HP-Compaq position as a long term hold due to the rule breaking, I am up 18.7% (net) on my first attempt, (HPQ account was second attempt, and is long term now), and 9.7% (net) so far on my second attempt. I paused for pretty much the whole month of september because I transferring to a new college and was still working things out there. Otherwise, I started about 4 months ago, and most major indices have been about down or sideways over the past 4 months. The first attempt was with less money than the second attempt, so combined I'm up 12.7% which is anything but sideways. Even if you include the HPQ long term, I'm still up 5.6% (net). Not superbly great yet, but by the end of my first year, there's no reason why I shouldn't be up at least 15% to 20%.
And like I said already, I'm pretty sure you have me confused with actual day traders, so if you're trying to wow me/others with "What do you know about Japanese Candlestick charting techniques?" (me, nothing specifically) then you're heading down the wrong path - I'm not over that way. Although you can discuss these techniques if you want, I don't mind the extra learning.
A ROTH-IRA is the best thing that could ever happen to you. You can only contribute a max of $3000 or your income this year. Not sure how much you make at your summer job. Anyone who has been investing for a while will tell you to open the Roth_IRA ASAP.
Yes, Roth IRAs are a good idea, I just haven't had time yet to find a good one, but I do know to move there eventually (soon) - I was taking spring and summer classes as well and have really only had 2 whole weeks off in the past year (right at the end of August) to accomplish anything else.
Just should point out. not many people are involved in it anymore.
Just wanted to add that as I have thought about it recently, I think the only reason I held onto HPQ was because I knew that I missed the chance to make that 2 or 3 percent. All I needed to do was be up at a reasonable time, sit down at my computer for 15 minutes starting around 9:20 am and I would have had an extra 40 or 50 bucks. All other loses were really loses right out of the gate, so I had no problem dumping them.
Reason one:
"The only exception was with my HP-Compaq position, where I broke my rule and held on. I shouldn't have done that, it was a mistake, if I would have let go of the stock I would have been out maybe $10 to $20. Instead, I hung on because the stock was currently undervalued (although not by a large amount) and it tanked lower. I let my emotions get to me that time (even though I was able to easily let go on a couple other stocks earlier that lost me $20 to $30 each)"
Yes, I screwed up, but that was a matter of discipline more than getting burned by the market or having bad strategy. Seriously, everyone should probably be up and running around by 9:00 am on week days. This would never happen again unless I am absurdly tired the night of a stock purchase (which should be easy enough to avoid in the future). I was being a lazy-arse but actually made a good decision since the stock jumped in the morning by 2 or 3 percent as I predicted - if I had been awake I would have sold.
Reason Two:
during hte tech boom, everybody was a genieous. Daytrading was mostly a fad jsut like junk bonds were in the 80s.
Very true, but again, I'm not really doing the traditional day trading.
Reason Three:
amateurs. Most people, youself included, don't know what successful day traders do to be successful. Fact is, the succsesful ones won't tell you their secrets. The successful ones are not at fool.com's forums.
True, I'm sure if I were to go into actual day trading that I'd probably have quite a few burns. That's why I'm not doing it. And I would tend to agree that the expert day traders don't hang out at fool.com's forums, but then again I only went there once or twice before and haven't been back to fool.com in a couple months. Fool.com was just a good place for me to start out and get some basic information in the first couple weeks, so I thought I'd mention it here as starting point for any other interested readers.
Reason etc .......
I'm surprised you didn't learn with HP-Compaq already. Wait till history repeats itself. Maybe ththe second time around you'll get it square in the nuts.
I did learn with HPQ already, a quasi-dumb lesson of sticking to a schedule and sticking to my rule set, but that's it. HPQ was the last trade I made before I transferred colleges and stopped for about a month. But what if I never came back? Where would Delta and their 10% be? Not in my pocket. If everyone stuck their tail between their legs and ran at the first sight of trouble, where would we be? Why didn't long term holders pull out in 2001 - 2002 and 2002 - present. Some have, but where do they go now? Apparently day trading doesn't work. And I'm sure they've been in bonds and are sick of them. Yea, they should be diversified, but it's still troubling to see your stock portion hurting. The fact is that all the fields have troubles, you just gotta play them right in order to stay afloat. It's just easier and less taxing on people's minds to stick with some indices or funds that they don't have to worry about as much. Ya make it sound like short term trading will be the death of whoever tries.
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