Hello all,
I am going to start a journal here. I have started to read others and noticed that many of them started with the same amount of knowledge I have; not much. So here we go.
Current Life Situation:
I am a 34 year old father of five. I am in school part-time and work full-time. However, I would like to do more than barely make ends meet. So I am looking into stock trading.
Current Experience -
I have been playing around (paper) with trading for the past 5 months. I work in IT so I am in front of a computer 80% of the day, which allows me to keep track of things. When I started, I tried to guess when companies that I knew about would go up or down based upon the news that I read about those companies. This led to some pretty big swings back and forth between losses and gains. I ended up after 3 months basically breaking even and deciding that a more conservative/informed approach was needed approach was needed.
Since then I have been reading more on market trends and companies before I do anything. I have opened an account with Scottrade which allows me access to real-time data. IN addition, I have been reading candlestick charts in order to see if I can pick out market trends. Finally, I have started reading posts here, and plan on picking up some books that have been repeatedly mentioned in posts.
The nice thing about playing around is that it allows me to experiment. and see what works and what does not. So far I have learned the following lessons.
1) Don't trade on emotions - I lost all my gains for the week last week when I short sold something I thought was going to go down. Halfways through the day it was up 4%. I panicked, bought to cover, and then bought shares. The stock then proceeded to fall down to up only 1%. My analysis was wronbg (The stock has been up since then) but if I had had a stop in place, and not panicked bought in an attempt to "ride the wave" I would have limited my losses.
2) This is related to the last point. Don't trade too much, or stick with your plan. There is always the fear of missing the big one. This makes me want to find it, and exploit it. Instead of being happy moderate gains, I will sell out something that is not performing well that hour, and look for something that is, only to find the stock which was not performing well has turned around and the stock I hoped to win on was now losing.
3) Don't have too high expectations. I went into this thinking that if I could find the right trade I would make thousands in a week. However, even if I did guess right, these thousands would prove to be a temporary loan, and I would often lose that, and maybe more, on the next guess. gaining 5-10 dollars a day is better than gaining 1000 only to lose twice that much.
Basic Current Strategy
I am currently playing with the following strategy. First, I look for stock trends by examining candlestick charts. I have signed up for a service called hotcandlestick.com which takes a lot of the work out of it. I find what looks like a strong pattern, and then take a look at the companies recent performance and company information. For instance, a company that is not doing well financially, has been in a bullish state , but has a bearish candlestick would make a good short. I try to balance out my trading by having 1/2 shorts and 1/2 longs. I then try to hold onto them for about a week (unless my stops or limits are met) and then do my research again.
Anyway, I am not sure what more to write at the moment. Any input would be great!
Jamey
I am going to start a journal here. I have started to read others and noticed that many of them started with the same amount of knowledge I have; not much. So here we go.
Current Life Situation:
I am a 34 year old father of five. I am in school part-time and work full-time. However, I would like to do more than barely make ends meet. So I am looking into stock trading.
Current Experience -
I have been playing around (paper) with trading for the past 5 months. I work in IT so I am in front of a computer 80% of the day, which allows me to keep track of things. When I started, I tried to guess when companies that I knew about would go up or down based upon the news that I read about those companies. This led to some pretty big swings back and forth between losses and gains. I ended up after 3 months basically breaking even and deciding that a more conservative/informed approach was needed approach was needed.
Since then I have been reading more on market trends and companies before I do anything. I have opened an account with Scottrade which allows me access to real-time data. IN addition, I have been reading candlestick charts in order to see if I can pick out market trends. Finally, I have started reading posts here, and plan on picking up some books that have been repeatedly mentioned in posts.
The nice thing about playing around is that it allows me to experiment. and see what works and what does not. So far I have learned the following lessons.
1) Don't trade on emotions - I lost all my gains for the week last week when I short sold something I thought was going to go down. Halfways through the day it was up 4%. I panicked, bought to cover, and then bought shares. The stock then proceeded to fall down to up only 1%. My analysis was wronbg (The stock has been up since then) but if I had had a stop in place, and not panicked bought in an attempt to "ride the wave" I would have limited my losses.
2) This is related to the last point. Don't trade too much, or stick with your plan. There is always the fear of missing the big one. This makes me want to find it, and exploit it. Instead of being happy moderate gains, I will sell out something that is not performing well that hour, and look for something that is, only to find the stock which was not performing well has turned around and the stock I hoped to win on was now losing.
3) Don't have too high expectations. I went into this thinking that if I could find the right trade I would make thousands in a week. However, even if I did guess right, these thousands would prove to be a temporary loan, and I would often lose that, and maybe more, on the next guess. gaining 5-10 dollars a day is better than gaining 1000 only to lose twice that much.
Basic Current Strategy
I am currently playing with the following strategy. First, I look for stock trends by examining candlestick charts. I have signed up for a service called hotcandlestick.com which takes a lot of the work out of it. I find what looks like a strong pattern, and then take a look at the companies recent performance and company information. For instance, a company that is not doing well financially, has been in a bullish state , but has a bearish candlestick would make a good short. I try to balance out my trading by having 1/2 shorts and 1/2 longs. I then try to hold onto them for about a week (unless my stops or limits are met) and then do my research again.
Anyway, I am not sure what more to write at the moment. Any input would be great!
Jamey