Plainview's Stock Trading Thread...

Plainview

I am a sinner.
Sep 11, 2013
47,075
25,088
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Decided to dabble again in day trading since I had money just sitting there. I really shouldn't have feared the collapse a few months back. I would have cleaned house.
 
Decided to dabble again in day trading since I had money just sitting there. I really shouldn't have feared the collapse a few months back. I would have cleaned house.


I thought about it, but had to much sh;t going on like starting a new job.

Also, I'm not even setup with a broker. I'm not sure if it's best to go all online or find a local agent?
 
Decided to dabble again in day trading since I had money just sitting there. I really shouldn't have feared the collapse a few months back. I would have cleaned house.
I don't have that much in it right now due to all my moving expenses, but I'm up 10% right now on my Acorns account. Wish I had the moving funds to drop into it lol. I'd be up a lot of money
 
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Today I bought GE, McDonalds, Coke, and JCPenny.

Sold McDonald's and GE for $289.46 profit. The goal for me whenever I trade is $250 a day if I buy and trade in the same day, which is usually how I WANT to do it. Doesn't always happen that way. Coke I have a sell at $47, but may let it go lower. Bought it at $44.80 and may let it go at $45.10'ish so I can see $300 profit today, just because. I'm gonna hold onto the JCPenny for a while. They'll probably end up crashing out, but I only bought 2500 shares at $0.18. It's a $450 gamble, but I've seen it shoot up for no reason and it's a minimal risk with a lot of upside IMO.

Since Schwab now has no fee trading, I can buy and let go much sooner than I would want to. When they had fees, I'd have to figure in $10 per stock. So, if a stock wasn't performing much, and was only up $10, it would be a wash and I'd have to wait until $20. Now, I can be a bit faster in letting stocks go.
 
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Sold my Coke stock a little earlier than I wanted. It was up today decently, but the jobs numbers are set to come out soon and wanted to get profits in before a possible drop after the numbers coming in. Bought it 150 shares at $44.80 and sold it at $45.70. Net profit is $134.85. 2% gain. I'll take it. Yesterday was .9% gain. Coke hit $45.82 thus far today, but you make money, and minimize exposure, by getting out of the market before you should.
 
I guessed wrong on Coke staying pretty much where I sold it at. That's ok though. With the chaos in the market, you really never know what is going to happen minute to minute. It's ok. A 2% profit was made on that and that's a win. That's what you have to drill into your head if you're gonna play in the market with relatively high frequency trading. If a decent profit is made, don't question your moves if a stock bounces much higher after you sold it. You sold it. You made a profit. You won. On to the next move.
 
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Today I bought 500 shares of GM at $23.05. Sold at $23.35. Net profit is $149.74 for a .98% increase. Since I'm not throwing the boat behind one stock at the moment, I'm going to look at 1% as the mark where I want to see daily profit per buy rather than a set dollar figure of $250 that I used before. GM may go higher today, but it's been floating around $23.25-$23.40 for about a half hour and wanted some profits. Still, nearly 1% gain is awesome.

Edit: Sold at the right time as everyone else seems to be taking profit and selling. It's down to $23.20. If it goes back down to $23 I may buy again.
 
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Made a good sell on GM. It's down to $22.88 now. May buy again. Seeing if I can feel where the bottom may be.
if you get caught feeling around for the bottom you won't be able to run for President... Well, then again, unwanted groping may now be a requirement. 🤮
 
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if you get caught feeling around for the bottom you won't be able to run for President... Well, then again, unwanted groping may now be a requirement. 🤮
Had a buy at $22.75 at end of session. Just missed it. Hope it opens lower tomorrow so I'm happy I missed it.
 
Sold JCPenny. It jumped today to 29 cents at opening. I had sell at 30 cents. It dropped to 27 cents and I changed sell to 28 cents. Sold it at 28 cents. I had wanted to hold it for a while, but the jump was too much and a selloff usually comes after that big of a jump. So, wanted to cash out profits. Obviously this is my biggest profit percentage. It's 51.3% profit. Bought 2500 shares for $462.50. Net profit is $237.48. What I am disappointed I didn't do is double up yesterday. I had a buy at the end of session but it never reached my buy price.
 
I was correct with the selloff. JCP is down 21% for the day. Unfortunately, the GE that I bought didn't sell at my trigger which was 1 cent more than open, and it's now getting hammered. The same goes for Callaway Golf. It was up pre-market and was looking to just get out, but missed my trigger by 1 cent and it's down, like most stocks today. So, have to hold onto them for a while.
 
Also, this is a very good time to pass along this tip. DO NOT TRADE WHEN BORED. I was bored yesterday with not making trades, so I bought GE. Bored trading leads to poor decisions and money being tied up while you wait for the stock to rise.
 
Stocks are swinging everywhere today. I was nearly back to even on GE and Callaway. Ford was up for me, but didn't want to sell yet. Dropped. I did buy JCPenny again today and sold it quickly. Bought 4575 shares at $.18 and sold at $.20 for a net profit of $109.78 for just under a 12.7% profit. I'll take that every day of the week! It was 10 minutes of "work." Bought it. Watched it for a few minutes as I watched the DOW and the trends of other stocks, similar or otherwise, and set my sell price.
 
Callaway jumped and sold at $12 per share. Had 1000 shares. Net profit was $337.23 for 2.89% increase over purchase price. It's up right now substantially more, $12.30, but I'm quite ok with nearly 3% return.

One thing to keep in mind, not sure if I mentioned it earlier, on all short term gains, the tax is 10 to 37%. That's for any stock bought and sold in under a year not part of a retirement fund. My trading is separate from my retirement fund. Long-term gains are much cheaper tax wise. They're 0%, 15% or 20%.

Here's a link about tax ramifications with regards to trading and income level. https://www.investopedia.com/articl...gterm-vs-shortterm-capital-gain-tax-rates.asp
 
Here are some caps of the recent trades.

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Ford had a nice jump today. Sold 1000 shares for $399.89/8.33% net profit. Purchased at $4.80 and sold at $5.20. GE is up right now, but still at a loss for me. Hoping it gets to $6.00-$6.10 a share this week so I can unload it. I don't want to sell it for any loss. f*** GE.

GE jumped and sold it at $6.05 a share. I had 2000 shares. Net profit for GE is $229.33/1.09%. I'll take it! Bought 1000 originally at $6 per share. It dropped and I doubled up at $5.87.

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Total net profit for the day.

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Today's buy was Wayfair. Bout 100 shares at $157 per. It was down and then bouncing up and down. The past half hour it jumped, and I changed my sale price from $160 to $162. It kept bouncing around between $160.50 and $160.80. So, changed sale price to $160.75. It sold. Profit was $374.64 for a 2.39% profit increase on the purchase. I've had Wendy's on a buy at $20 per share, but it keeps bouncing to $20.30 and not really coming close to $20. Will probably cancel the sale with the indexes up today as the helter skelter market usually trends down the following day.

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There is really nothing special in the way I trade. I try to use common sense when I make a transaction. I never buy when a stock is up for the day, and usually not if it's up from the prior close either. When determining what to buy, I cycle through the 1, 2 hour, day chart. That one usually stays at 1 hour. I look at the 2 and 5 day chart. That usually stays at 5 day. Then I look at the 1 and 3 month chart. All of that is to see the trend of where the stock has been, and where it's trending. To me, the five day is most important because I get a sense if it's over priced at this time. Then I look at the 1 month and get a bigger picture of where it came from. If a stock is much higher than what it was a month ago, I'm weary as, either correctly, or incorrectly, it's overpriced, especially now with the current economy.

I have trackers set to only stocks I know. Nothing obscure that these dudebro stock traders yell to buy. I keep it ultra conservative. The tracker is almost always set to view at greatest change from open descending. That means, the stock that's down the most percentage wise is at the top. Then I look and see if it's down from yesterday's close as well. If it is, I then look at the volume. If the volume is low, that means there won't usually be many swings in price. If the volume is high, the swings will be greater since there's more activity. Exceptions to every rule as Wayfair was all over the map today with not much in the way of volume. It's only around 2.5 million in volume.

That's really the gist of it. I took my time today. Wayfair is where I had my eyes all day. It was down pretty well for no real reason. So, jumped on it. I guessed correctly. Glad I sold it. It hit $161. I only left $25 on the table. Not worth the potential drop since the stock has been so chaotic today.

So, that's how I trade. 🤷‍♂️
 
Did you do any of those sim sites or something to get a feel without using real money? I'd love to do it, but I'd be hesitant to leave my job without knowing if I was any good at it. One of the financial stations was always on at the gym (back when that was a thing) and I'd always see some stock that had tumbled for a seemingly minor reason and think "that will bounce back".

I'm having that work mid-life crisis where I've been working in the same career for 20+ years and the thought of doing another 20+ makes me want to vomit.
 
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Bought Wayfair again. Bought it at $157.50 and sold it at $160.50. Almost missed my sell. I was watching it intently rather than setting an exit. I had a sell at $162. I changed it to $161. Then I saw it stalling and changed it to $160.50. Well, I thought I did! It hit my mark, but it didn't sell. I was miffed. Then, I looked and I forgot to change the $161 to $160. So, my sell was at $161.50! Anyway, changed it and it sold promptly. Net profit was $299.65/1.9%. I'm not sure why there's so much movement with Wayfair. There's no news on anything. Either way, nice day.

Here's how today went. Pre-market I was looking at Under Armour. They're struggling and are down 60%+ on the year I believe. It opened and I set a buy price. It missed and started rising. I missed my window so I cancelled the order. Looked at Ford, but it was up and didn't want to buy it on an upswing. Sirius was a potential buy, but volume was way low so I stayed away. I looked at Wayfair again and it was up. I check on it a half hour later and it was falling. I set my buy price below the days low. If it triggers, cool. If not, no problem. It triggered. It was a nice guess on that as it only went down a few points and rose swiftly. Then, I focused on watching it.

Bought it at 11:06am and sold it at 11:44am. My total time devoted to trading today was about an hour and a half; the hour watching Wayfair and probably half hour 45 minutes pre-market and watching the opening.

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Did you do any of those sim sites or something to get a feel without using real money? I'd love to do it, but I'd be hesitant to leave my job without knowing if I was any good at it. One of the financial stations was always on at the gym (back when that was a thing) and I'd always see some stock that had tumbled for a seemingly minor reason and think "that will bounce back".

I'm having that work mid-life crisis where I've been working in the same career for 20+ years and the thought of doing another 20+ makes me want to vomit.
I tried it a while back, but the trackers they have are delayed and makes 'day trading,' impossible because you can't watch stocks on real-time. I'm not sure if any offer real-time trackers. I think there was one, it costs like $20 a month or something. I could be wrong. I dabbled years ago with stocks. No profit or anything. It was just messing around and letting stocks sit. Since I only had $1000 or so in it, I was limited in the number of transactions I could make in a week.

It would be cool if someone replicated what Schwab has and charges $25 a month or so, an app and website, and people can simulate trade. All the same tools. I'll take a screencap and show you what I see when I'm trading.

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At close on Friday I had set a buy on Ralph Lauren to buy 100 shares at $72.25. It was bouncing around all day. I didn't think it would hit that price, but I set a buy anyway. It triggered when I was away from the computer. I had a bracket on it to automatically sell at $75. It didn't come close and profit was only $58 for the day. So, it didn't automatically sell. It was up pre-market so I changed the bracket to $75.25. It opened higher and sold at the market opening instead, $76.41. Net profit was $416.73 for huge 5.77% return. I did miss out on substantially more as it's going to hit probably $80 per share now.

Edit: Hindsight is 2020, as it's probably going to hit $80 per share today, but I'm ok with that. Missed out on some more decent profit, but again, I'm ok with that. Every single time you make a trade there's always 'I should have held on longer.' You just have to really not give a s*** about that. It will drive you nuts. Getting out of holdings too soon never led to losing your shirt. It helps build your wardrobe.

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Bought Wayfair yesterday. I could have sold it yesterday, but I decided to hold onto it for a day and try to get 2% + out of it. Bought 100 shares at $152 per share and sold at $155.50 per share. $349.66 net profit for a nice 2.3% gain. Originally had sell price at $157 yesterday. It may hit that today, but as I always say, 1% or more for a trade is a big win. Very happy with 2.3%. I got a bit greedy as it was rising and changed the sell price back up to $156 and then it dropped. I stopped playing around and just set the sell price to $155.50. No reason to try and squeak $50 more profit out of a stock with love volume, but the possibility of high volatility.

I have 100 shares of AMD I bought as well on Tuesday. It dropped quite a bit, and was going to double up, I should have, as it's come back and I'd already be out of it today. Net down $68 and am debating getting out of it. It's iffy. We'll see later on today. I bought it at $54 a share and have a sell at $55. Originally I had a sell at $57. I think it's gonna be a while before it sniffs $57 again.

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Since it looks like I may be done trading for the month, I wanted to take a look and see what my performance was. This was my first month back since July of last year. Not really sure why I stopped? Anyway, I made a total of 12 trades this month. This excludes today's trades. I made $110,520.20 in trades with a return of $2,979.18. Average % profit on each trade is 3.89%. That's excluding my JCPenny trade that netted a 51.35% return. Including that the average jumps to 7.84%. I omitted that because it's skewing the numbers. My trading account increased 10.27%. I was VERY happy when I calculated everything up. I couldn't ask for a better month, and I shouldn't think this is how it will be every month. I read/did everything perfectly and I benefitted. I could have made more, of course, but as I said, it's better to get out early than to wait and be stuck with something not performing. I'm gonna hate giving 30% of it to the government at the end of the year! 😢
 
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Ok, this one kinda irks me... I should have held onto Wayfair! LOL! It's up $20 per share since I sold it two days ago! UGH! Makes zero sense for it to increase that much unless dudebro traders are manipulating it? That would have been a nice haul!
 
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AMD sold for what I bought it for. It was a net $0.12 loss. I bought 100 shares of Ralph Lauren at the end of the day on Friday for $75 per share. Sold it for $76.75 per share. Net profit was $174.71 and 2.32% gain. Another nice return. Today, nothing is really standing out yet. I've had my eye on Exxon for a while. Still not comfortable touching an energy stock yet.

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