Let’s talk stocks

Scalped BIDU calls right after open this morning for 12% win. Been holding AMZN calls for about a week now. Probably should have cut them this morning. Holding QQQ puts overnight too
 
So one of our fellow stratters posted on his Twitter today his results from March 1st. Ashford Trader (@StratDevilDog) said he has about a $100,000 account and for March and April is making about $15,000/month. The only 2 losing days since March 1st was March 5th (-$281) and March 6th (-$1462). Not too shabby
 
Only 3.69% for me today overall

Is there any way to calculate your net average daily return after commissions and taxes over a given time period?

If that average was anywhere near 3.69% on a daily basis, you have found a system where compounding interest will result in huge gains and turn you into a multimillionaire in a reasonable time horizon, if you are not one already.

That said, I’m still skeptical of these sporadic reporting of wins - I still don’t think they give any indication of your success long term.
 
Is there any way to calculate your net average daily return after commissions and taxes over a given time period?

If that average was anywhere near 3.69% on a daily basis, you have found a system where compounding interest will result in huge gains and turn you into a multimillionaire in a reasonable time horizon, if you are not one already.

That said, I’m still skeptical of these sporadic reporting of wins - I still don’t think they give any indication of your success long term.

I don’t dig into it that deep but I do look at how each of my stocks are doing every day, some may gain 3% today but others lose 3% for a zero gain day. Then there are days like yesterday where everything I have was in the green. I invest and don’t touch. I’ve lost 60k in three days before but got it all back in 5 weeks. Worse thing you can do is sell when the price drops. That’s when you want to buy more (if stock is solid, do research) As far as overall success mine is much higher than 3% but some of that is from investments like Tesla and Virgin galactic. Also have several stocks that split like UP, Tesla, Apple so that helps as well


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You absolutely need to if you expect any credibility. Otherwise your just throwing anecdotes at us and we have no way of knowing if your system works at all over time.

I still suspect it doesn’t.

Not looking for credibility and don’t care if you think what I’m doing is working or not. All I know is I’m a lot better off now than when I started. I did not start this thread to give advice but actually the exact opposite. I want to learn more about the system of investing and what you or others are doing or avoiding. I do a lot of research on companies before I invest but most of my gains could be pure luck and may lose it all next week. If it is luck, sooner or later it will run out so the more educated I get the better chance of avoiding a disaster. Hopefully
So with that said, what advice do you have?


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Not looking for credibility and don’t care if you think what I’m doing is working or not.

That’s good. I doubt your presentation is winning any converts to day trading or technical analysis or whatever scheme you’re using. There’s nothing new in what you’re doing, and people are rightfully skeptical.

So with that said, what advice do you have?

Read “One Up On Wall Street”. Buy shares in quality companies, ideally ones in businesses you’re familiar with, and hold them as long as they meet your goals. One big winner can far outweigh all the smaller winners and losers.

Again, one can trade in and out of Apple or play options on it and maybe eke out a few dollars here and there. In contrast, one can buy and hold it and hopefully reap long term rewards. My big winner below. And it pays dividends as well.

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Only 3.69% for me today overall...

I have an Excel spreadsheet set up where I can play with compound interest.

Let's say one started with $10,000 and managed to average "only" 3.69% gain per trading day.

After 100 trading days you'd have over $310,000. Not bad.

After 200 trading days you'd have over $13,540,000. Even better.

After 300 trading days you'd have over $507,370,000. Not bad for roughly one year's trading!

The fact that these results appear elusive maybe implies that such percentage gains on a daily basis are nowhere near realistic.
 
I have an Excel spreadsheet set up where I can play with compound interest.

Let's say one started with $10,000 and managed to average "only" 3.69% gain per trading day.

After 100 trading days you'd have over $310,000. Not bad.

After 200 trading days you'd have over $13,540,000. Even better.

After 300 trading days you'd have over $507,370,000. Not bad for roughly one year's trading!

The fact that these results appear elusive maybe implies that such percentage gains on a daily basis are nowhere near realistic.

That is a good idea on using a spreadsheet to track daily. I do not day trade as I don’t have the time to watch it that close. I think what you are saying is if you had that gain per day it would be easy make a lot of money in a short amount of time. I wish it was that easy but as we all know you can gain 30k in one day but lose 40k the next. I look at what I have in a particular stock vs what it’s worth today then look at what I would actually have after capital gains tax is taken out. I don’t pay anyone to invest for me so all I have is a transaction fee.


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I have a spreadsheet to track my P&L. Think of it this way...if you make $50/day, which isn't hard to do at all trading options...that is over $1000/month. I can buy $500 worth of options and take a 10% win to get my $50. 10% is pretty easy. Probably 98% of my trades move at least 10%. The problem is when 10% isn't enough and you try for 20%. Maybe you get to 15% then ride it back down for a loss. That's why I say the mental part is the hardest to overcome. If you have a large enough account and are comfortable enough then buy $5000 of options and take $500/day.

I can assure you there are day traders making this every day. Yeah they might have losing days but they have many more winning days. One of our fellow stratters (@_JamesBradley_ on Twitter. Mind the underscores in his username). Jim is also a pilot...Jim just had his first losing day of the year last week. He day trades at the open. We call him the 1 minute millionaire. He is usually done by 9:35 every day and makes between $500-2000 every day. He trades stock, not options. He typically buys or shorts about $1,000,000 each time. Not a large % win but a large $ amount and it works for him.

As far as fees, they really shouldn't be much of a factor anymore. Most brokerages offer no fee trading on stocks and the fees on options are minimal. My typical options premium is about $2.50-$7.00/contract (that is $250-700). 1 contract costs me $1.30 to get in and out (round trip). So if I make 10% on a $5.00 contract then my $50 winnings costs me $1.30 in fees. I think the most I ever paid in fees in a year was about $4000 and that was before they cut fees when there was a $4.95 base fee per trade and .50/contract so 1 contract would cost me $10.90/trade. For 2 contracts it was still a $4.95 base fee but now $1.00 in and $1.00 out so $11.90 for that trade.
 
What do you think the railroad stocks will do? I see CN and CP are fighting over KCS


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I gave up on MF for two reasons....non-stop advertising how great they were, and non-stop failure of ehat they were pushing. Lost a chunk, even over the long term (3+ yrs) I can lose money on my own, thank you.
Likewise. A classic "the advisor who makes money regardless of what's happening" scheme. I subscribed to a couple of their portfolios for a while, endured the constant upsell, lost a bit of money, and gave them the heave-ho. Before moving to an independent money manager a few years ago, I put a bit of money into a couple of stocks that I thought would be good in a recession: McD, Nucor, etc. Logic on McD was that people would move "down-market" as the economy softened. SO put some into the major company her sister works for and that turned out fine. We did OK, but we're doing "OK-er" with the money manager (including a strategy of harvesting capital losses for tax purposes during the sharp market drop last year).
 
My investing strategy has evolved over the years. There’s a study out that shows the less trading you do, the better your returns. Taken to the limit, that’s no trading. I don’t sell, I just buy when I have available cash.

Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) says market movements happen in response to events, and events happen randomly. Sometimes things get oversold, so that’s the time to buy. Also, generally, the market prices events in before you can react. MPT also says to have a portfolio of equities, etc. that aren’t highly correlated. Thus, some will be down while others are up. Eventually, they’ll swap places, so you want to buy the oversold funds, and if you truly rebalance, sell the overbought funds. My funds are ETFs that capture different market segments at minimal cost. I spend about 6 hours a month managing my portfolio.
 
I love how, on threads like this, you'll hear all kinds of posts about how much people made on various positions. Very rarely will you hear anything about losses! It's like the Lake Wobegon effect applied to stocks.
Let me tell you about US West -> Qwest -> CenturyLink -> whatever it's name is now and I don't care.

Inherited US West from Dad when he died in unexpectedly in mid-1999. Knowing about the take-over, his plan was to sell US West before the end of the year but I was busy commuting between Colorado & Arizona to pack up his house and sell it while still working in Colorado. Lost over $25K. At the time of Anschutz buying US West, it was paying 5 cents/share dividend each quarter, prices for 1999 (last year of existence) started the year at $61 and ended at $72/share. As soon as the takeover completed, divs went to close to zero, and the stock, well, let's just say that I know a number of previous employees who either lost their entire retirement fund and/or their jobs. All things considered, I was luckier.

Thank you Phil Anschutz for putting Joseph P. Nacchio in charge.
Convicted of 19 charges of insider trading.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio

Thank you Phil Anschultz and the Board of Qwest for not just ignoring, but abrogating your fiduciary duties.
I brooklyn cheer at the very large list of donors at the Denver Museum that has his name at the top.
I don't care how much money he donates to cover over his business practices.

Let's see, what else. ENRON...that one, I was lucky, only $1500.
 
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I didn’t get cheated, but I sold my 100 shares MSFT a few months after I bought it, IPO. I don’t want to know how much they’re worth now.
 
Thoughts on VVOS


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Hit DIS and GOOG yesterday for nice gains then today TSLA was a big winner for me. Had a few losers and a few other small winners but another nice day. Will be running scans Sunday to look for new monthly and weekly setups
 
No one ever tells you how much they lose at the casino.

Haha, no one ever loses at the casino, yet they can't stop building billion dollar hotel casinos in Vegas. The same with car dealers, everyone walks out thinking they got a steal on their new car, yet one dealership owner in Denver just put his $26M estate on the market. I guess some people aren't getting that good of deals.
 
Hit DIS and GOOG yesterday for nice gains then today TSLA was a big winner for me. Had a few losers and a few other small winners but another nice day. Will be running scans Sunday to look for new monthly and weekly setups

Just curious...

...does anyone following this thread find posts like the above informative?
 
Hit DIS and GOOG yesterday for nice gains then today TSLA was a big winner for me. Had a few losers and a few other small winners but another nice day. Will be running scans Sunday to look for new monthly and weekly setups

What are your thoughts on VVOS?


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What are your thoughts on VVOS?
Never heard of it until today. From looking at it, VVOS appears to be one of those stocks that is propped up by the greater fool theory. A company that loses more than a dollar when it takes in a dollar of revenue is a speculation of the highest order. These stocks have their day and the people who get lucky with them will typically conclude from that that they are geniuses. Then comes the point when the fools stop showing up and the stock crashes.

Like the casinos and the lotteries, evolution has wired us to be attracted to this kind of stuff. So VVOS scenarios will always be around.
 
Never heard of it until today. From looking at it, VVOS appears to be one of those stocks that is propped up by the greater fool theory. A company that loses more than a dollar when it takes in a dollar of revenue is a speculation of the highest order. These stocks have their day and the people who get lucky with them will typically conclude from that that they are geniuses. Then comes the point when the fools stop showing up and the stock crashes.

Like the casinos and the lotteries, evolution has wired us to be attracted to this kind of stuff. So VVOS scenarios will always be around.

I hear ya, I see a lot like this but was just curious if anyone thought it would take off


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What are your stocks you have invested in? Why? Which one’s are you considering dumping due to reaching a plateau? I have UP, Apple, Tesla and Virgin Galactic but have been watching Textron lately and it seems to be going up. What do you think textron will do with what seems to be a spiked interest in GA?


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Read A Random Walk down Wall Street. Stock movements are as close to random as matters to a small investor, and stock picking rarely outperforms tossing a coin.
 
What are your thoughts on VVOS?


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On the yearly chart it is an inside candle. Quarterly is a 2 up but forming a gravestone doji (bearish). Monthly is the same and also forming a gravestone doji. Weekly chart looks even worse. For me I would need for it to break the previous months high if I'm looking to hold longer term. As of now that would be 10.86 but that is quite a ways away. Not saying you can't make money from where it is now up to $10 but you will be fighting an inside candle which usually causes chop. Just my opinion.
 
Just curious...

...does anyone following this thread find posts like the above informative?
If you don't like it don't read it:). If you have noticed I have posted some watchlists that have done very well and hopefully some people made some money following them. But some still question that anyone can make money doing what I do so I post my results so people can see that it does work. If it is unwanted then I will quit posting here. With an attitude like the one you just showed maybe this site just isn't the place for me. Oh well. I'm on Twitter and Youtube daily trying to share my knowledge free of any charges. It took me a long time to get to this level in my trading career and if I can help others shorten that curve then I'm more than willing to pay it back and help others.

In fact, there is a guy on here that PM'd me awhile back and I helped him out and last I heard from him he had been having the most success he ever has in his trading. But that's fine. Maybe it's time for me to leave this site if it isn't appreciated
 
On the yearly chart it is an inside candle. Quarterly is a 2 up but forming a gravestone doji (bearish). Monthly is the same and also forming a gravestone doji. Weekly chart looks even worse. For me I would need for it to break the previous months high if I'm looking to hold longer term. As of now that would be 10.86 but that is quite a ways away. Not saying you can't make money from where it is now up to $10 but you will be fighting an inside candle which usually causes chop. Just my opinion.

Gibberish.

If you don't like it don't read it:).

I’ll read what I want.
 
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On the yearly chart it is an inside candle. Quarterly is a 2 up but forming a gravestone doji (bearish). Monthly is the same and also forming a gravestone doji. Weekly chart looks even worse. For me I would need for it to break the previous months high if I'm looking to hold longer term. As of now that would be 10.86 but that is quite a ways away. Not saying you can't make money from where it is now up to $10 but you will be fighting an inside candle which usually causes chop. Just my opinion.
Do you believe in astrology and healing crystals, too?
 
Maybe it's time for me to leave this site if it isn't appreciated
I appreciate the posts. It's nice to hear from someone with experience.

Can you take a look at SQ? I initiated a small position Friday, looking to hold til Wednesday or before closing on Thursday. Thanks
 
If you don't like it don't read it:). If you have noticed I have posted some watchlists that have done very well and hopefully some people made some money following them. But some still question that anyone can make money doing what I do so I post my results so people can see that it does work. If it is unwanted then I will quit posting here. With an attitude like the one you just showed maybe this site just isn't the place for me. Oh well. I'm on Twitter and Youtube daily trying to share my knowledge free of any charges. It took me a long time to get to this level in my trading career and if I can help others shorten that curve then I'm more than willing to pay it back and help others.

In fact, there is a guy on here that PM'd me awhile back and I helped him out and last I heard from him he had been having the most success he ever has in his trading. But that's fine. Maybe it's time for me to leave this site if it isn't appreciated

Don’t worry about the negativity from a few. Keep posting as some of us do want to learn and that works best by sharing info. Thx for the insight on VVOS


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Read A Random Walk down Wall Street. Stock movements are as close to random as matters to a small investor, and stock picking rarely outperforms tossing a coin.
Yes. That's a good one among many from serious and knowledgeable people. I also like "Winning the Loser's Game" by Charles Ellis. For beginners: "The Coffeehouse Investor; How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street and Get on with Your Life" by Bill Schultheis.

... maybe this site just isn't the place for me. Oh well. I'm on Twitter and Youtube daily trying to share my knowledge free of any charges. ... Maybe it's time for me to leave this site if it isn't appreciated
Well the problem is that a few people might be led to believe this nonsense.

I think the academics have pretty well quit studying technicians and writing papers about technical analysis. Probably the problem is that technical analysis has been debunked so many times that it's hard to get yet another paper published when it simply proves what has already been proven. Occasionally, though, someone creates a graph using a random number generator and gives it to a few technicians to analyze. The results are always hilarious.

Re this site being the place for you, @optionizerSS, I'll hazard a guess that you have been laughed off the serious investing sites, so are left to sites like this one where investing is not even close to being the main interest. Do you post at The Gerbil Society, maybe? Nappies Today? Facebook and Twitter make sense, too, as anything goes there.
 
So what happens when the house of cards that is the current stock market comes crashing down?
 
Well the problem is that a few people might be led to believe this nonsense.
What nonsense?
Re this site being the place for you, @optionizerSS, I'll hazard a guess that you have been laughed off the serious investing sites, so are left to sites like this one where investing is not even close to being the main interest. Do you post at The Gerbil Society, maybe? Nappies Today? Facebook and Twitter make sense, too, as anything goes there.
While I don't think technical analysis is always an accurate method to initiate a trade or begin an investment from, it's certainly a viable strategy to draw assumptions of risk from and I certainly wouldn't call it nonsense. I'd wager a guess (which may or may not apply to you) that what many people call 'nonsense' are often times things which they either don't understand well, or simply refuse to believe due to their own preconceived bias. While his investment and/or trading strategy may not align with yours, let's not dismiss his contributions.
 
So what happens when the house of cards that is the current stock market comes crashing down?
Passive investors will just ride it out. The only alternatives are to stay out of the market completely and permanently or to try market timing. Here is the wisdom on the latter: Taylor Larimore's market timing quotes https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Taylor_Larimore's_market_timing_quotes

... I'd wager a guess (which may or may not apply to you) that what many people call 'nonsense' are often times things which they either don't understand well, or simply refuse to believe due to their own preconceived bias. ...
Probably true. In my case I call it "nonsense" because that is the conclusion from decades of academic research. I think we were all told this in pilot training: "You'd better learn from the mistakes of others because you won't live long enough to make them all yourself." People have been trying to beat markets for centuries, maybe millennia, so there is a rich literature to learn from. The problems arise when we succumb to our human biases to consider ourselves to be exceptional and lucky. That is why 80% of drivers (probably pilots, too) evaluate their driving skills to be above average. Another problem arises that the random nature of the markets regularly creates winners, who then conclude that they are genius investors. Nassim Taleb's book "Fooled by Randomness" deals with this and is worthwhile reading for any serious investor.
 
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So what happens when the house of cards that is the current stock market comes crashing down?

I was warned that might happen back in the early 1980's when the Dow was below 1,000. And that the way for me to avoid disaster was to put all my money in gold. I did put a tiny amount in gold which I still have, and admittedly gold has done OK over the following 40 years*, but nowhere near the 30x appreciation in the market - before dividends!

Oh, and ditto the recommendation on "Fooled By Randomness".


*I think gold was trading at maybe $300/oz back then, so at best a fourfold appreciation in that timespan.


Edited to add: I found this from 1980: "The stock market certainly had its ups and downs in 1980, touching a low of 759.13 on April 21 and reaching a high of 1000.17 on Nov. 20 as measured by the Dow Jones industrial average. Yet the Dow's closing of 963.99 yesterday represented a robust gain of almost 15 percent for the year. - NY Times, Jan 1, 1981
 
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Passive investors will just ride it out. The only alternatives are to stay out of the market completely and permanently or to try market timing. Here is the wisdom on the latter: Taylor Larimore's market timing quotes https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Taylor_Larimore's_market_timing_quotes

Probably true. In my case I call it "nonsense" because that is the conclusion from decades of academic research. I think we were all told this in pilot training: "You'd better learn from the mistakes of others because you won't live long enough to make them all yourself." People have been trying to beat markets for centuries, maybe millennia, so there is a rich literature to learn from. The problems arise when we succumb to our human biases to consider ourselves to be exceptional and lucky. That is why 80% of drivers (probably pilots, too) evaluate their driving skills to be above average. Another problem arises that the random nature of the markets regularly creates winners, who then conclude that they are genius investors. Nassim Taleb's book "Fooled by Randomness" deals with this and is worthwhile reading for any serious investor.
That’s fair, I get it. I’m of the belief that every bit of knowledge I can gain about any one thing can become valuable, so it’s interesting to me to see what others, day traders in particular are seeing when they make their trades.

I will say that I’ve tried to study technical analyses over the years and I haven’t been that great at making predictions. I’ve seen situations where the charts have bearish or bullish setups and the sentiments have changed like the wind, so there’s definitely no tell-all.
 
... it’s interesting to me to see what others, day traders in particular are seeing when they make their trades. ...
I can give you a related data point on that. A couple of years ago when I was developing my Adult-Ed investing class I spent a bunch of time with a TDAmeritrade branch manager. At that time TD's business focus was on day traders. After an hour or so we were pretty comfortable with each other, so I asked: "How did your day traders do in the market last year?" There was a long, embarrassed pause, then she said "One and a half percent." That would have been 2017, when the market indices were up between 20% and 40%.
 
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