Stock Market FRUSTRATIONS!!!!!!

[BallzDeep]

I recently started looking after my own money, figured I could at least match the 5% my advisor was getting me. About 2 1/2 months ago I bought a stock and it immediately went down as they always do. After 3 weeks it dropped about 2$.

It slowly crept back up to about 80 cents more than what I bought it for last Tuesday, I was tired of waiting for it to increase so I sold it and immediately bought another one. Well since then the one I sold went up over $3 and the one I bought down about $1, about a 20g difference, FUCK!!!!!

I'm still doing better than the advisor but the frustration is beyond discription. I don't have an SO but this has to affect relationships, I am irritated to say the least, any other stories would be appreciated.

 

[poker]

Read "Boom Bust and Echo"..... it outlines the how predictable the housing boom of the 70 and 80's was, and how we all should have seen the crach coming.... the Boomers grew up and needed houses... once they had all moved out, they didn't need new houses... but we kept building not realizing it.

The boomers are in the trhier 50's and have needs... medical is one such area... think of what else they'll need and you'll make $$$$

Cheers!

 

[jackd1959]

I've been investing in the market on my own for 26 years. It can be frustrating depending on the type of investing you are doing. If you are day trading and looking for the big "POP" you are in for a very frustrating time. I personnally go for value investing. Finding stocks that are undervalued, usually in an industry that is out of favor with wall street. It requires time and an understanding of accounting practices since you should do your own research. When oil prices were $10 USD a barrell back in the mid 90's I loaded up on oil and oil service companies like Conoco, ARCO (bought out by BP), Texaco, Diamond Offshore Drilling, Precision Drilling among others. Then waitied for the inevitable. Patience is required but you should have a target price for your investment.

 

[BallzDeep]

I tried day trading and found it will lead to one thing, INSANITY. I have stayed with the mining stocks, if you hit one it can be huge, trouble is hitting one. LIM went up almost 5X in one year. I get too impatient, buy too quickly and sell if it's not going up fast enough, learn the hard way.

Looking at the price is too easy from my home computer and hard not to check it frequently, not a good idea. What just happened to me was a good example, wasn't happy with the rate of increase and ended up losing out on a bundle.

 

[Gyaos]

I recently started looking after my own money, figured I could at least match the 5% my advisor was getting me..

5%? That's $5.00 on $100.00, right? That is not $200.00 additional on a $100.00 investment. I'll bet your advisor is not rich and only a sales person, right? So if that's true, why are you taking advice from him? When you bought your stock and it went down, why did you stay in it? Hope? Risk aversion? You had better odds at a Black-Jack table. You should have went into the options market and issued a put on the stock. That way when it went down, you made money. Get a book on financials and study it hard.

The most risky investments ever are savings, stocks, bonds, mutual funds and yes: 401-Ks and IRAs. Savings loses its value. It does not increase. Why? Because that money, isn't money at all. It's a currency and a currency is designed to lose value over time. So you only end up saving at a lower value of the currency.

Good luck!

Gyaos Baltar (KING of Finance)

 

[BallzDeep]

I'm not looking for advice but will take it, I was hoping for a similar story to mine for comfort.

 

[sandhuphd]

The most risky investments ever are savings, stocks, bonds, mutual funds and yes: 401-Ks and IRAs. Savings loses its value. It does not increase. Why? Because that money, isn't money at all. It's a currency and a currency is designed to lose value over time. So you only end up saving at a lower value of the currency.

Good luck!

Gyaos Baltar (KING of Finance)

can you clarify what you mean king of finance

 

[zekestone]

Are you trying to make money by 'trading' or 'investing'? Trading is far more stressfull and is basically a full time job... and being good with statistics is practically a necessity.

I tried trading... made money for my broker doing all those trades, and a little for myself. I find investing results in returns that are practically as good or better.

Mind you, I had/have a day job and I didn't follow/run all the stats that really serious day traders do.

If you want to day trade, take a university-level statistics course and then follow that up with some books on day trading.

If you are into investing, then I suggest:
One Up on Wall Street and Beating the Street, both by Peter Lynch
The Warren Buffet Way (can't remember the author).

 

[zekestone]

The most risky investments ever are savings, stocks, bonds, mutual funds and yes: 401-Ks and IRAs.

Ummm... you're joking right?

 

[JohnLarue]

You should have went into the options market and issued a put on the stock.
Gyaos Baltar (KING of Finance)

That has to be the worst advice I have ever heard.
This guy obviously is a novice investor with little understanding of how the stock market operates, having him move into the options market where a high degree of leverage can be employed is plain & simple irresponsible.

Options should only be used by retail investors to hedge or reduce risk. (However they & you probably should understand risk first)
Using options to speculate can be extremely profitable, however the retail investor should understand it is a sum zero game. For every winner there is a loser
They are up against teams of CFA's & MBA's working for the big brokerage houses, who's only job is to study these markets & look for inefficiencies (ie. novice investors willing to pay too much for an option)

"King of Finance" Thats a good one. I would not want to be a treasurer for that kingdom. More likley "Court Jestor of Finance"

Now for some sound advice
1. Educate yourself
2. Do not be in a hurry
3. Diversify yourself. Buy lots of high quality companies over a period of time & hold them for 3-5 years or until they become expensive relative to what the company earns.
4. Mutaul funds are a suckers game. If you must, buy the low MER EFTs
5. Do not get spooked. The markets will go up & they will go down. It happens all the time. The general trend over a long period is up
6. Educate yourself some more

 

[BallzDeep]

What I'm doing is trading and finding it is quite risky, I lucked out in the last mini crash in Feb. or March, actually sold at 3:55 the day before, pure luck. I try to stay out until a down day for a stock and then buy in, there is an analysts sell/hold/good buy bar that RBC has, I stick to the good buy stocks, although there's no guarentee with that either.

I said earlier I lost out on about 15 g's in a three day span because of impatience, I do have to do more research. One more question, the stock I was in usually has about 50k volume daily, the days it went up over a dollar a day, the volume was over 250k, can traders on bay or wall st. pick a stock and heavily trade it to manipulate the price.

 

[zekestone]

What I'm doing is trading and finding it is quite risky, I lucked out in the last mini crash in Feb. or March, actually sold at 3:55 the day before, pure luck. I try to stay out until a down day for a stock and then buy in, there is an analysts sell/hold/good buy bar that RBC has, I stick to the good buy stocks, although there's no guarentee with that either.

I said earlier I lost out on about 15 g's in a three day span because of impatience, I do have to do more research. One more question, the stock I was in usually has about 50k volume daily, the days it went up over a dollar a day, the volume was over 250k, can traders on bay or wall st. pick a stock and heavily trade it to manipulate the price.

If you're a trader, you shouldn't care if the stock goes up or down. A trader makes money both ways by going long or short. The only time a trader can't make money is when there is no price movement.

For stock trading, whether a stock is "good" is irrelevant. All that matters is whether you correctly gauge which way a given stock is moving and how well you capitalize on those moments.

Trading has nothing to do with investing. Real trading is highly technical in nature and you're basically constantly using statistical analysis to forecast probably price movements. Up or down, it doesn't matter.

And using that non-timely 'brokerage rating' advice for day trading will be financially suicidal eventually.

Brokerage ratings that are available for free, usually have real no value. Brokerages make money on selling the truly valuable info.

The only way you will be successful at day trading is if you become your own analyst.

 

[zekestone]

4. Mutaul funds are a suckers game. If you must, buy the low MER EFTs

Mutual funds serve a purpose in that they enable diversity for those without large $ portfolios.

 

[jackd1959]

comfort

I invested $5000 grand in a stock called Stratacom back in the early 90's and watched it grow to $120,000. Another company bought them out in the mid 90's and after a quick look at the buyer I sold to lock in my profit. Buyer was CISCO Systems and had I "let it ride" it would have been worht $10 Million in 2000. This created my when it doubles sell half rule.

I bought Nortel Networks in the mid 90's and watched it split 2 for 1 three times... applied my sell half rule developed above but was still sitting on 400 shares at $80 USD when it tanked. Went from a $32,000 holding to under $300.. did a reverse 1 for 10 split and I'm now holding 40 shares worth $24 each. Fortunately, I did lock in some substancial profit.

I have more but those two were the most painful. The point is that greed kills. You need to set reasonable goals on what you are trying to gain from a given investment and act on them. I spend 40 hours a week on research and that is in addition to my full time 60 hour a week job but it has paid off well over the past 26 years. I'm fortunate that I have a degree in accounting and computer science and have spent 26 years working in the technology field... CISCO was a gamble in 1995 and I reinvested my $120,000 USD in oil companies, so I made out well but $10 Million would be nice : )

It can always be worse... so be careful and don't get greedy.

 

[SpaClient]

One word of advice...

What I'm doing is trading and finding it is quite risky, I lucked out in the last mini crash in Feb. or March, actually sold at 3:55 the day before, pure luck. I try to stay out until a down day for a stock and then buy in, there is an analysts sell/hold/good buy bar that RBC has, I stick to the good buy stocks, although there's no guarentee with that either.

I said earlier I lost out on about 15 g's in a three day span because of impatience, I do have to do more research. One more question, the stock I was in usually has about 50k volume daily, the days it went up over a dollar a day, the volume was over 250k, can traders on bay or wall st. pick a stock and heavily trade it to manipulate the price.

Diversify.

 

[Smash]

About 2 1/2 months ago I bought a stock and it immediately went down as they always do. After 3 weeks it dropped about 2$.

It slowly crept back up to about 80 cents more than what I bought it for last Tuesday, I was tired of waiting for it to increase so I sold it and immediately bought another one. Well since then the one I sold went up over $3 and the one I bought down about $1, about a 20g difference

Wasnt this an Seinfeld episode?

 

[Malibook]

What I'm doing is trading and finding it is quite risky, I lucked out in the last mini crash in Feb. or March, actually sold at 3:55 the day before, pure luck. I try to stay out until a down day for a stock and then buy in, there is an analysts sell/hold/good buy bar that RBC has, I stick to the good buy stocks, although there's no guarentee with that either.

I said earlier I lost out on about 15 g's in a three day span because of impatience, I do have to do more research. One more question, the stock I was in usually has about 50k volume daily, the days it went up over a dollar a day, the volume was over 250k, can traders on bay or wall st. pick a stock and heavily trade it to manipulate the price.

50k average daily volume is an extremely thinly traded stock, especially at those prices.

15 grand on a $3 move means you bought 5k shares, 1/10 of the total average daily volume, which is a large percentage.

Thinly traded stocks are generally not very liquid, have a large spread between bid and ask, and can move significantly with very small trades.
10% of the average daily volume would be a relatively huge trade.

Of course market makers can manipulate a stock like that very easily.

 

[hoser1970]

I bought Nortel Networks in the mid 90's...I'm now holding 40 shares worth $24 each. Fortunately, I did lock in some substancial profit.

Jack's got 40 shares I bet he'd be willing to sell you!

 

[jackd1959]

I'm holding onto my 40 shares for posterity... : )) They are a humble reminder that you can't always win, even when buying what appear to be sound companies. I do know that most day traders go bust in about 2 years.

 

[BallzDeep]

50k average daily volume is an extremely thinly traded stock, especially at those prices.

15 grand on a $3 move means you bought 5k shares, 1/10 of the total average daily volume, which is a large percentage.

Thinly traded stocks are generally not very liquid, have a large spread between bid and ask, and can move significantly with very small trades.
10% of the average daily volume would be a relatively huge trade.

Of course market makers can manipulate a stock like that very easily.

Yes, the low volume did concern me but the stock had a stong buy rating and had more than doubled in six months. A surge like this, is it more due to market manipulators than company success. In the last couple months there have been 3 high volume days, all with about $1.50 increase each time. Can they also manipulate it down?

After a surge, is there likely to be a sell off and ultimately a price decline?