Watch AMZN, FB, AAPL if QQQ falls over the next few weeks. Under normal consolidating I believe these three stocks should hold up. Slowly buy some options a few weeks or a month out after consolidation to try to get more alpha. Best of luck.
I'm back in, tomorrow
- Thread starter GrowleyMonster
- Start date
Oh yeah, forgot about AAPL. Hey, it came up a half percent in the postmarket. Might be a runner tomorrow. Unfortunately I don't do options and know nothing about them and don't have time to learn cause I am too busy trading equities, selling razors, and checking off items on the honeydew list. Wife dabbles in options. I leave that to her.
Apple could be worth a pair trade for that reason but may be tough with your low buying power. Everyone who trades should learn options.
AMZN, HUYA, NIO, SQ looking good to me this morning. Dumping FB at the bell. Probably take a share of AMZN and 70 NIO
Okay, my entire stake is in play except for $14. I dropped the FB. Bought a share of AMZN. Still holding 3 shares TSLA from yesterday. Went to buy NIO and it was flagpoling and I didn't think it was a good idea to chase it. I waited for a consolidation but I botched it by not waiting long enough, for a nice greenie with good volume, and it went down some more so I started deep in the red. The 1hr chart for NIO looks great but up close in the 5min it is a little thought provoking so I may set a stop at a $10 loss point JIC. So today I have ONE day trade available. Bought two stocks today. If the market goes tits up, I can drop TSLA and then I have to choose between NIO and AMZN to hold, cause I can only sell one or the other. I am leaning toward dumping NIO which is probably only a short term thing anyway.
I should have expected the buy frenzy on NIO at the opening bell. Should have had my finger on the trigger and caught that first hyoooooge eruption. I was more concerned with AMZN and getting rid of FB at a decent price.
Darn. I chickened out on NIO, sold at a $28 loss. It was dragging me down and now it is on the move again. Shoulda held firm cause the 1hr chart looked fine. Okay, so now I am committed to AMZN but I can dump TSLA if necessary. Stupid NIO. DOWN, DOWN, STUPID NIO! BACK TO THE DEPTHS OF EQUITY HELL THAT SPAWNED YOU!!! And TQQQ is irritating me, too. I need the NASDAQ to run up hard. I am only up .35% and it is already an hour and a half into the day. TSLA is just going sideways. I might dump it cause I really don't want to end the day below $8100 and that $27 loss on NIO hurt.
Hmmmmmm.... looks like a more realistic goal is to not end up below $8k for the day. SQ was bucking the downturn so I bought 15 shares and I have two shares AMZN. Looks like I should have been more ready to bet out on the bear side today. Well, I did say we might get a correction Tuesday night, so I should have listened to myself. I don't think this is going to be a long downturn and regardless I can salvage things in the morning if this isn't a black swan situation. But oh, hark, do my eyes deceive me? TQQQ is running back up! So are my stocks! A brief respite before the final plunge? The start of a monster rally? Stay tuned, viewers, for the exciting and suspenseful outcome!
And now it's back up and I am on the sunny side of $8100 again. Isn't the stock market just wonderful?
I should have expected the buy frenzy on NIO at the opening bell. Should have had my finger on the trigger and caught that first hyoooooge eruption. I was more concerned with AMZN and getting rid of FB at a decent price.
Darn. I chickened out on NIO, sold at a $28 loss. It was dragging me down and now it is on the move again. Shoulda held firm cause the 1hr chart looked fine. Okay, so now I am committed to AMZN but I can dump TSLA if necessary. Stupid NIO. DOWN, DOWN, STUPID NIO! BACK TO THE DEPTHS OF EQUITY HELL THAT SPAWNED YOU!!! And TQQQ is irritating me, too. I need the NASDAQ to run up hard. I am only up .35% and it is already an hour and a half into the day. TSLA is just going sideways. I might dump it cause I really don't want to end the day below $8100 and that $27 loss on NIO hurt.
Hmmmmmm.... looks like a more realistic goal is to not end up below $8k for the day. SQ was bucking the downturn so I bought 15 shares and I have two shares AMZN. Looks like I should have been more ready to bet out on the bear side today. Well, I did say we might get a correction Tuesday night, so I should have listened to myself. I don't think this is going to be a long downturn and regardless I can salvage things in the morning if this isn't a black swan situation. But oh, hark, do my eyes deceive me? TQQQ is running back up! So are my stocks! A brief respite before the final plunge? The start of a monster rally? Stay tuned, viewers, for the exciting and suspenseful outcome!
And now it's back up and I am on the sunny side of $8100 again. Isn't the stock market just wonderful?
Okay, the day is done. Yeah still like 45 minutes left in the postmarket but it isn't going anywhere far.
So since I started really getting back into this in a serious way, I have traded 7 days, from $7100.87 to $8244.13 for a gain of $1143 and 16.1%. $8k funded account. Who says you can't make money with a tiny account? Ross Cameron did it, apparently. Others have done it. I can too, whatever the pundits say. Can I get an amen here?
LOL well I think it is time to shift gears a bit. I am not buying any more stock until I have three day trades available, and I will never open a position that I can't bail out of. After tonight I am not going all-in for the overnight. It is time to tighten up slightly on the risk management and also to be a little better prepared (or really, less unprepared!) for the (probably) coming crash. Our investments are largely in bonds so not worried about that, but I would hate to have my entire trading acccount in play and everything hemmorhages 20% down overnight. So after tomorrow I will probably be doing good to keep up a reasonably solid 1% P&L every day. In fact, I doubt that I can. But even a half percent can double the account in 7 months. But I got to prevent major losses and to do that I need to be able to bail out when things get metric. OTOH I think a lot of times I have bailed when I shouldn't, when I should have been capable of making the right decision, and I need to work on that.
What I seem to have learned... first, that big stocks can play quite well in a strong bull market, no need to mess with highly volatile penny stocks when the mega-stocks are going up 2% to 4% in a day. Second, that barring some calamitous event, stopping out is usually a bad thing when the bigger trend is still solidly upward. Third, while an overnight is risky, it is often a very worthwhile risk. Fourth, aggressive trading does not mean wild and crazy, off-tilt trading. It means taking large risks for larger rewards with due attention to safeguarding sufficient funds to live and trade another day. Fourth, to get down into the tiny bars to make that entry really count, at a good dip if possible, but make sure it actually IS the turn of the dip or the first bar up out of it. A few other things, but I am the cook around here and I got to make dinner for me and Mrs Monster.
So since I started really getting back into this in a serious way, I have traded 7 days, from $7100.87 to $8244.13 for a gain of $1143 and 16.1%. $8k funded account. Who says you can't make money with a tiny account? Ross Cameron did it, apparently. Others have done it. I can too, whatever the pundits say. Can I get an amen here?
LOL well I think it is time to shift gears a bit. I am not buying any more stock until I have three day trades available, and I will never open a position that I can't bail out of. After tonight I am not going all-in for the overnight. It is time to tighten up slightly on the risk management and also to be a little better prepared (or really, less unprepared!) for the (probably) coming crash. Our investments are largely in bonds so not worried about that, but I would hate to have my entire trading acccount in play and everything hemmorhages 20% down overnight. So after tomorrow I will probably be doing good to keep up a reasonably solid 1% P&L every day. In fact, I doubt that I can. But even a half percent can double the account in 7 months. But I got to prevent major losses and to do that I need to be able to bail out when things get metric. OTOH I think a lot of times I have bailed when I shouldn't, when I should have been capable of making the right decision, and I need to work on that.
What I seem to have learned... first, that big stocks can play quite well in a strong bull market, no need to mess with highly volatile penny stocks when the mega-stocks are going up 2% to 4% in a day. Second, that barring some calamitous event, stopping out is usually a bad thing when the bigger trend is still solidly upward. Third, while an overnight is risky, it is often a very worthwhile risk. Fourth, aggressive trading does not mean wild and crazy, off-tilt trading. It means taking large risks for larger rewards with due attention to safeguarding sufficient funds to live and trade another day. Fourth, to get down into the tiny bars to make that entry really count, at a good dip if possible, but make sure it actually IS the turn of the dip or the first bar up out of it. A few other things, but I am the cook around here and I got to make dinner for me and Mrs Monster.
why you choose alpaca as a broker?
I wanted to learn how to do API programming in python and the python API is the whole point of Alpaca. Every other brokerage with an API that they will give to the unwashed multitudes, it is sort of an afterthought that is hard to make really work unless you are some kind of python genius. I knew I could get Alpaca's API to work for me and I have already learned a lot about it. Also I really like TradingView's charting, and IB and TV supposedly have tried for years to get together but both point fingers at the other saying they are obstructing and not doing their part. I used to use IB. Stopped trading for a long time and when I came back in, I went with Alpaca.
There are a lot of things I don't like about Alpaca but most of them will be non issues when I get my own trading machines up and running. Meanwhile, using TradingView for a platform on Alpaca obviously works pretty good. Put it this way, I am making money with it and more importantly I am having a lot of fun with it. I'm retired. I don't need a couple hundred extra dollars a week. But I like playing the stock game with Alpaca and TradingView.
For the average player, one of the bigger brokerage houses would be much better than Alpaca, sorry to say. But for me and especially for future me, it is a pretty good deal.
I tried to get IB's API to do tricks for me but I just couldn't get it to work. I actually thought TWS was a pretty good platform in most respects, even though there are a lot of guys who don't like it. I found it "fairly" flexible and customizable, and it runs good on Linux. I don't use WinDOHs and we don't even allow a WinDOHs computer in the house. Abomination! Closed source, security through obscurity. We are running Ubuntu 16.04 or 20.04 on every computer in the house except a half dozen Raspberry Pis that are on Raspbian.
Average joe trader probably shouldn't consider Alpaca. Programers or wannabe programmers, now that's a different thing.
Holey cow what a selloff! In one 5min bar the TQQQ dropped over $2! I had just set a low stop on AMZN and was about to do the same on SQ, and as I mulled over where to stop SQ, I heard the little jingle bell and saw the message saying AMZN stopped out. I immediately sold SQ as it started down, then looked at TQQQ and oh crap... then it turned around and instinctively I bought 10 shares at the dip but maybe it is just the little dip before the big decline, and I have no day trades available. As usual. Even though it looks now like it was a good entry and it is just this minute making profit, I am down below $8200 total equity. I'm out until I have three day trades available and when I come back in, I will only trade one position at a time and try TRY to not sell on the day I buy. Darn. I should not have bought TQQQ that could have been a bad mistake. The stop was I think prudent and proper even though it did bite me in the hiney.
So now I am holding only TQQQ. I kinda need to see it up around $117 this evening so I am at least over $8200 and then I will set a stop under it in the morning. Next Wednesday I will have my three day trades available and I will come back in and play.
I'm not a crackerjack analyst trailing half the alphabet after my name. Just an old retired sailor who didn't bother finishing high school. But everything seems overpriced to me and I am thinking the recent "crash" wasn't The One. I got myself back out of the hole for the umpteenth time and I am now profitable again. I need to tighten up, not make any more stupid mistakes, and always be ready to bail out of long and turn around and bet short. I am really feeling after watching a bunch of vids on the '29 crash that the present trading environment and culture are very similar to summer of '29 though there are a lot more checks in place. On top of that, there is every reason for the market to be declining, not rising.
For the rest of the day I am taking a complete break from all trading activity, and tomorrow I want to do some paper trading and work out some bear market ideas. That is one thing that is not one of my strengths and it will soon, I believe, be an essential skill set. I might take advantage of the hiatus to study options and futures as well, and maybe do some more python development centered around the Alpaca API.
So now I am holding only TQQQ. I kinda need to see it up around $117 this evening so I am at least over $8200 and then I will set a stop under it in the morning. Next Wednesday I will have my three day trades available and I will come back in and play.
I'm not a crackerjack analyst trailing half the alphabet after my name. Just an old retired sailor who didn't bother finishing high school. But everything seems overpriced to me and I am thinking the recent "crash" wasn't The One. I got myself back out of the hole for the umpteenth time and I am now profitable again. I need to tighten up, not make any more stupid mistakes, and always be ready to bail out of long and turn around and bet short. I am really feeling after watching a bunch of vids on the '29 crash that the present trading environment and culture are very similar to summer of '29 though there are a lot more checks in place. On top of that, there is every reason for the market to be declining, not rising.
For the rest of the day I am taking a complete break from all trading activity, and tomorrow I want to do some paper trading and work out some bear market ideas. That is one thing that is not one of my strengths and it will soon, I believe, be an essential skill set. I might take advantage of the hiatus to study options and futures as well, and maybe do some more python development centered around the Alpaca API.
Darn. Checked back in and TQQQ is going down like a shot duck. Bought SQQQ as a hedge until tomorrow when I can sell whichever one seems most appropriate, or maybe both. That's all. I'm going fishing.