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Day trading chimps?

mandown

Poopdeck Repost
Jun 1, 2004
20,134
7,680
Transylvania 90210
yup! went all in on my "trading" account. i'd been out for a bit, but could smell the bounce coming. kicking myself for not grabbing GE even though i had my finger on the trigger. my big block of HANS is making me feel better. this weekly Euro flip-flop is silly.
 

ridiculous

Turbo Monkey
Jan 18, 2005
2,907
1
MD / NoVA
Definitely a tough decision if your price target isn't met and if you got a nice entry, I would almost be inclined to gamble, but I don't hold any positions through earnings typically. I have to say that HANS is probably one of the few remaining stocks that has a nice up-trending pattern to it including the massive sell offs from this summer. Looks like there is a bit of a pennant forming on the chart, a break to the upside will play out very nicely for you assuming euroland holds together.
 

mandown

Poopdeck Repost
Jun 1, 2004
20,134
7,680
Transylvania 90210
I'm learning a lesson on INTC. I bought, and now they are dipping, I'm assuming because of the ex-div date. If they pay out 3+% in divs and drop ~1%, my math still says I'm ahead.
 

mandown

Poopdeck Repost
Jun 1, 2004
20,134
7,680
Transylvania 90210
I'm dumb, I did buy GE, and enough to offset the declines in INTC. At this point, I'm just surfing the irrational volitile momentum. Honestly, not much consideration for any real underlying values. I used to hate guys doing what I'm doing, because it just makes the swings bigger. Now, I'm going to go with the flow.
 

Whoops

Turbo Monkey
Jul 9, 2006
1,011
0
New Zealand
I'm dumb, I did buy GE, and enough to offset the declines in INTC. At this point, I'm just surfing the irrational volitile momentum. Honestly, not much consideration for any real underlying values. I used to hate guys doing what I'm doing, because it just makes the swings bigger. Now, I'm going to go with the flow.
...and you've become part of the problem. Boo.
 

mandown

Poopdeck Repost
Jun 1, 2004
20,134
7,680
Transylvania 90210
Not like I'm trading enough volume to make an impact to the market. Just grabbing some extra spending change, and creating more paperwork on my taxes. #Uppermiddleclassproblems
 

mandown

Poopdeck Repost
Jun 1, 2004
20,134
7,680
Transylvania 90210
For the technical brains here, what seems to be the reason for HANS's rebellious and contrary performance in the market? I've seen it tending to be down on up-days, or, like today, it is up when all else seems to be down.
 

ridiculous

Turbo Monkey
Jan 18, 2005
2,907
1
MD / NoVA
Today activity was the reaction to their earnings release last night. Good performance, good outlook, earnings, rumors, news, price patterns/momentum etc. These are all things that can make a stock shine or falter individually.

The lately a ton of stocks on the nasdaq have had "minds of their own."
 

mandown

Poopdeck Repost
Jun 1, 2004
20,134
7,680
Transylvania 90210
Any way you slice it, I pulled over 7% out of them in just over a day. I bought at lunch Wednesday (pst, so end of the market day) on the bad market news and dropped first thing today.
 

?????

Turbo Monkey
Jun 20, 2005
1,678
2
San Francisco
How much money are you investing towards Apple to actually see a reasonable profit? It seems that you would have to invest $50,000 or more before any reasonable return was achieved; and even then, you'd only be making $5,000 if you sold the stock for $50 above what you bought it for.

If you want to make money, buy penny stocks and don't feel obligated to sell them at the end of the day or week.
 

mandown

Poopdeck Repost
Jun 1, 2004
20,134
7,680
Transylvania 90210
It all about percent return, and trade cost. It didn't take long to see that $1,000 of anything making 5% was only $50, less $20 in trade costs, only to be taxed. Joker made that point clear early on in this thread.

At the time I bought Apple and Google, I was just dipping a toe in to get a feel, so I bought a few different stocks in "small" amounts. My plans for those two were a bit more long term, though I did expect to bank something short term from the iPhone release.

I'm not going to say the specific amount I invest, but I will say that I have designated a comfortable portion of my savings for me to trade at the frequency I have the tolerance for.

As casual momentum trading has become my style, I have found HANS to be in the range of volatility that makes it worth my efforts, but stable enough that my gut rests easier since I "feel" like I know something about the company. Penny stocks just don't do that for me and my needs.
 

?????

Turbo Monkey
Jun 20, 2005
1,678
2
San Francisco
It all about percent return, and trade cost. It didn't take long to see that $1,000 of anything making 5% was only $50, less $20 in trade costs, only to be taxed. Joker made that point clear early on in this thread.

At the time I bought Apple and Google, I was just dipping a toe in to get a feel, so I bought a few different stocks in "small" amounts. My plans for those two were a bit more long term, though I did expect to bank something short term from the iPhone release.

I'm not going to say the specific amount I invest, but I will say that I have designated a comfortable portion of my savings for me to trade at the frequency I have the tolerance for.

As casual momentum trading has become my style, I have found HANS to be in the range of volatility that makes it worth my efforts, but stable enough that my gut rests easier since I "feel" like I know something about the company. Penny stocks just don't do that for me and my needs.
Buy $1,000 worth of 5 different penny stocks. 4 fail and you lose $4,000, but one makes it to $1 and you've made a $96,000 profit.

I don't know much about stocks, but that's what I did in a stocks class and made more profit than the other 250 students in my class combined.
 
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Krzr3000

Monkey
Apr 24, 2005
113
0
Buy $1,000 worth of 5 different penny stocks. 4 fail and you lose $4,000, but one makes it to $1 and you've made a $96,000 profit.

I don't know much about stocks, but that's what I did in a stocks class and made more profit than the other 250 students in my class combined.
You mean makes it $1 then gets dumped by the pumpers leaving everyone else bag holding an illiquid stock back at .001. ;) Huge position sizes and difficult executions make that easier said than done.

OTC land has been good lately though, the better pump and dump promoters have been bringing the volume. Lots of other <$1 stocks making nice runs too.
 

mandown

Poopdeck Repost
Jun 1, 2004
20,134
7,680
Transylvania 90210
Buy $1,000 worth of 5 different penny stocks. 4 fail and you lose $4,000, but one makes it to $1 and you've made a $96,000 profit.

I don't know much about stocks, but that's what I did in a stocks class and made more profit than the other 250 students in my class combined.
you think you can bat 1 out of 5 in the real game? if you could do that in class, have you done it for real? seems like you could find a way to get $5k of leverage and grow some wealth.
 

?????

Turbo Monkey
Jun 20, 2005
1,678
2
San Francisco
you think you can bat 1 out of 5 in the real game? if you could do that in class, have you done it for real? seems like you could find a way to get $5k of leverage and grow some wealth.
I actually did that 1 out of 1, but it was in a class with no risk of losing real money so I was going for maximum profit. In real life, I'd feel much more comfortable going with 1 in 5 odds. Just enough to better the odds without raising the buy in price too much. I just don't see the real benefit of buying just a few shares of expensive stock. At least with penny stocks, you can take out $1,000 and accept that you might be kissing the money goodbye, but at least you stand a chance to win huge.
 

mandown

Poopdeck Repost
Jun 1, 2004
20,134
7,680
Transylvania 90210
I actually did that 1 out of 1, but it was in a class with no risk of losing real money so I was going for maximum profit. In real life, I'd feel much more comfortable going with 1 in 5 odds. Just enough to better the odds without raising the buy in price too much. I just don't see the real benefit of buying just a few shares of expensive stock. At least with penny stocks, you can take out $1,000 and accept that you might be kissing the money goodbye, but at least you stand a chance to win huge.
My point was more that 1 in 5 is not the real odds. Your class project showed that you can get lucky and hit the lottery. My method isn't an all or none game. I may put in $1,000, and a 10% growth will only get me $100, but the downside is not that I will be out my full $1,000. It could happen, like with the AIG values in 2008, but odds are that some less significant loss is more likely with someone the size of Apple. There is also a chance for the value of a bigger name stock to return from a dip, creating growth in the future.

It also has nothing to do with how many shares you buy, only the total overall value of the investment. If I put $1,000 into 2 shares of Google, or 11 shares of Hansen, I'm still in for $1,000, so my return is in % of the investment value, not the share count.

Any way you slice it, it comes down to risk vs reward. If you go into risky land, you stand a bigger chance of losing, so the upside reward needs to be there to make it worth the gamble. I'm going for a lower risk strategy, so I'm getting a lower reward. Now the only thing that matters is if I feel the reward is worth my time and energy to play the game.
 

Krzr3000

Monkey
Apr 24, 2005
113
0
I actually did that 1 out of 1, but it was in a class with no risk of losing real money so I was going for maximum profit. In real life, I'd feel much more comfortable going with 1 in 5 odds. Just enough to better the odds without raising the buy in price too much. I just don't see the real benefit of buying just a few shares of expensive stock. At least with penny stocks, you can take out $1,000 and accept that you might be kissing the money goodbye, but at least you stand a chance to win huge.
Out of curiosity...how would you go about picking the stocks? Buy and wait for news on one of them? Pump and dumps? When you do this on paper, are you looking at volume? Some of the low floaters can make huge % moves but would have been impossible to trade in real life due to low volume.
 

ridiculous

Turbo Monkey
Jan 18, 2005
2,907
1
MD / NoVA


An in the money straddle may provide an interesting option for you mandown. Here's an example of one.

This is for SPY which is currently trading at 125.48. 100 shares of this would set you back $12,548 plus commission. Let's say you are anticipating a $5 move in the stock by momentum trading. That will give you $500 in profit or a 3.9% ROI.

Using a straddle or straight option play you can do much better. Buying an in the money december call (bot 120 C) and selling the same strike price put (sold 120 P). You can get yourself roughly 100 deltas which will mimic stock movement 1:1. IE stock moves a dollar, your position gains/loses a hundred dollars. You will pay $8.25 for the 120 call option and make $2.78 for selling the put. Selling naked will of course cost you margin which will cut into your purchasing power. For this example this trade will cost $825 and cost you $2790.02 margin so $3615 for the same performance as stock through December expiration.

So going along with the $5 move. $500/3615 = 13.8% ROI. 13.8/3.9 = 3.5 times better ROI, using a quarter of the purchasing power.
 
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?????

Turbo Monkey
Jun 20, 2005
1,678
2
San Francisco
Out of curiosity...how would you go about picking the stocks? Buy and wait for news on one of them? Pump and dumps? When you do this on paper, are you looking at volume? Some of the low floaters can make huge % moves but would have been impossible to trade in real life due to low volume.
I went based on some news and research. Too late for maximum profit, but good luck actually buying one for $0.01 and selling at it's highest value. The stock had a steady climb of a few pennies a week until it was about $0.20 when I bought it. I held on to it for 6 weeks or so until three consecutive days of decline. At it's peak it was around $10, and I sold it around $7.50. A few days later it went to zero. I don't remember what it was... some sort of internet/technology company.

I would listen to mandown and ridiculous though. I don't necessarily think that my strategy was very ethical (but I did get bonus points for the project). In addition to being risky, there may be some fatal flaw in my strategy if used in real life.
 
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Krzr3000

Monkey
Apr 24, 2005
113
0
If you are buying on news, you're too late.
Thats why i said buy and wait for news. Loading up on sub pennies and waiting for news is the penny gambler way. I think 75% of the threads on ihub are along the lines of "PR coming soon!"
 

ridiculous

Turbo Monkey
Jan 18, 2005
2,907
1
MD / NoVA
Sorry I misread you there.

It's just my style but I stay away from anything that is under $5, especially if it doesn't trade more than a million shares a day. I've only broken this rule a couple of times with the stock FEED and BAC but they were very much in the news and had loads of interest on them. I hate the slot machine odds you get messing around with penny stocks.
 

ridiculous

Turbo Monkey
Jan 18, 2005
2,907
1
MD / NoVA
spxnov9.JPG

Meh, the S&P was already at resistance. The next couple of days should be very interesting indeed though. A breakout of that line suggests a target of 1360+, a break of 1240 & 1220 would confirm a double top and send the market substantially lower. It's definitely a time to be open-minded as we are nearing the end of one phase and soon entering the next. Whether its bullish or bearish is still left to be determined.

Also, keep watching the financials. The breakout possibility will not be possible without some renewed strength in this sector. Momentum does seem to be waning, but this is where your intervention is.