Fast Forward

Posted by The Lost Daytrader on Oct 22nd, 2008
2008
Oct 22

I got away from blogging for quite a while. I was too busy making paper money in the stock market. Beginning in mid-February, I began investing money I needed to live on and I only did it because I was very confident in my stock picks. I used Zacks.com a lot and the bollinger bands on moneycentral charts. I really was doing good. I had a stable of about 12-13 stocks that I called the Lost Daytrader Mutual Fund. It was fun choosing stocks. At one point, around late April - Mid-May, I checked my normal Mutual funds and found they typically were down about 10-15%. My lost daytrader fund was at +36%.

 

The stocks I bought and sold over three months were these:

 

Oilsands (BQI) - bought and sold within two days because I got scared when it went down a little. Should have kept it because it went up about $2.00 in a month (about 50%)

 

Bought ten shares of (YHOO) and sold it a few days later at a loss. No reason to have done this but because I heard about MFST buying it, I did so too, just not as much.

 

Bought 1500 shares of a penny stock (well, it was 46 pennies actually). Never thought I’d own another one of those until I just got the nerve to take a look at my brokerage account. Now I own two more. Got rid of (SNUS) Sonus Pharmaceuticals in a few days, about broke even. 

 

Bought 400 Shares of North American Palladium at $6.08 and sold it a couple weeks later at $7.00  (about 15% profit) 

 

Bought 500 shares of Cell Genesys (CEGE) at $2.84, now worth .13 a share. Oh my goodness! But I sold 300 of it at $4.00. I should have sold it all. 

 

More PAL and sold it for about 15% profit a couple weeks later and other shares at about 20% profit.

 

NXG, no good. Sold at loss, but not much. A precious metals stock.

 

Got an oil stock Parker Drilling (PKD). Bought in at $7.22 after a recent big drop. Then went down to $5.22 and eventually sold at over $9.00 (25% profit or around there)

 

(USU) A Nuclear Power Plant company - diasaster

 

 Sprint (S) - few hours and I made about $20.00. A real daytrade, something I never do.

 

Great trades with Iomega (IOM) bought some at $3.05, then $2.85 and again at $2.85 and sold at $3.95 after it got bought out by another company.

 

Then came one of my favorites, Gamestop (GME) at $44.13 a share, then kept going up and up and up and sold at $53.00 after seeing a lot of insdiers selling it. This was my son’s favorite. 

 

Metalico (MEA) a recycling company. Bought in and then they decide to issue a lot more stock and price plummeted. Then it eventually went up by about 40% and I sold it. 

 

Bear Stearns (BSC) - I had to do it. Bought 50 shares and made about $30.00, another daytrade. 

 

China Fire Security Group - was a good Chinese stock and sold about 15% in two weeks.  

 

That was about the end of the good trades.  There are some others, some really good ones, but at about this time, mid-April, I began buying stocks that I still own on October 23rd which I should have sold long ago. Some of them were up 25% and I still kept them and now those same stocks are down 60%. Can you say "STUPID" and "GREEDY." I should have taken my money and run. If I had to lose that money, I shouldn’t have done it on such great stocks. Some of them will bounce back in a year or so. But I need this money now to pay the rent. STUPID STUPID STUPID!!!! 

 

Just don’t be too greedy. I think I’ve learned my lesson.

 

 





Diving Back Into the Water

Posted by The Lost Daytrader on Feb 10th, 2008
2008
Feb 10

I did  a lot of research (at least for me) on January 13th. It may have been a day or two earlier when I decided that I would invest again in the stock market. I identified a couple stocks that looked to have some postive news and good projections and decided to purchase 50 shares of I-Many Inc for $3.16. (IMNY), a business services company. I also bought 50 shares of Art Technology Group (ARTG) for $3.95. This company is in the software and programming industry and provides e-commerce products to many different high profile companies.

 

IMNY has done lousy since purchasing it, down to $2.46 as I write this. ARTG has gone up to $4.24 and is now back to $3.73.

 

Soon after these purchases, I researched more stocks around the $2.00 to $3.00 range. I found Jamba Juice (JMBA) and bought 130 shares at $2.93 but swore I put in the trade at $2.81. It seems that it may have hit a bottom and has little debt. It has a 52 week high of $10.89 per share. It is now trading at $2.80.

 

There hasn’t been anything new in my pettite portfolio since these purchases. I’ve been logging into my account, watching the action. Checking out the highs and lows and how much the stocks rise on average after a bad day. It’s interesting to watch the trends. I may make some moves this coming week. I’ll see what happens and tell you when it does. 

 

 

My Pal… Day Two Continued

Posted by The Lost Daytrader on Feb 4th, 2008
2008
Feb 4

 

 

 

Day two still isn’t over. I know I’ll have a heart attack if I ever try to daytrade again at the opening bell. The adrenaline rush is something I just can’t handle. Maybe things will change when I have enough money that I don’t care about losing it, but until that fantasy comes to fruition, I better stay off the heart attack express called 8:30 a.m central time.

  

So what did I do after selling Blockbuster? For some odd reason, I bought 230 shares of National Palladium (PAL). Once I make some sales and begin to buy again, I’ll be more exact and give my rationale for purchasing stocks. I bought PAL almost two months ago. This stock is up 43% since I purchased it. Unfortunately, I was still daytrading when I bought it. This stock immediately went down to $3.66 after purchasing it for $3.72.  Talk about stupidity being a blessing sometimes. This is what happened with my PAL stock. I was in such a rush to sell this stock that I actually forgot how much I had purchased. I put in a market order to sell 200 shares. I got the confirmation. I was through with daytrading. I made up my mind right then and there. I went to log off from my account and saw I still had an open position. I discovered I still owned 30 shares of PAL. I had not sold it all. Now it was down about another dime. I had lost $12.00 on the stock price plus commissions. I wasn’t about to sell this and lose more. I logged off, powered down my laptop and left Starbucks, ashamed of my total lack of knowledge, lack of self-control, and failure.

 

Over the next month, I sometimes logged on to see what PAL was doing. I saw it go above my buy price. I saw it rise higher. I consider this my trip to the gas station asking for directions. I found out there is another way to purchase stocks. While some people can get quick rich by daytrading, others should just hold on to their stocks. I researched PAL and found it to be a good company as far as I could tell. It’s not like it was going bankrupt over night. This stock was a keeper, at least for a while.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day Two

Posted by The Lost Daytrader on Feb 4th, 2008
2008
Feb 4




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before I get to day two, I should start off with the night before day two. Not knowing a lot about day trading, not even knowing if it is one compoud word or two indvidual words, I decided to do some research on different stocks. For that one or two word thing, I guess I should check MLA or Chicago style books for writing to be sure.  

 
I can’t even remember all of the stocks I checked out this evening. I began my research by checking out the biggest losers on Wall Street that day. I then checked out the charts for each stock over the past six months or so. I looked at each day their share priced dropped off sharply. I then looked at the next day to see if it rebounded. I found plenty of stocks that fell drastically that day, but only about 8 that I could afford to buy about 200-250 shares. I thought if they could go up about .20 a share, I could make $40-50 on that stock in minutes, minus commission of course.
 
 
I narrowed my choices down to four stocks, all of them looked good. I even had a mortgage company in the mix which seemed to have crashed before the big sub-prime scandal that killed the market this January. I decided to purchase Kosan Biosciences. It had opened the previous day at $5.55 and closed at $3.31. Talk about drastic loses. I just looked back at their chart for the past six months and figured I didn’t do such good research. Their stock had never rebounded that well the day after losing ground. I think I was just attracted to this stock because I figured they must go back up after losing so much. The odds were probably pretty good for that. Unfortunately, the stock market isn’t a place for amateurs to play hunches. So I bought 250 shares @ $3.45 and sold it @ $3.58 thirty minutes later. Minus commission I made $18.00. A whopping $36.00 an hour minus the time for research, if only I’d stopped there. Kosan, fifty days later, is selling for $2.63 a share. Glad I wasn’t investing for the long haul.
 
 
Just to make this trade and the subsequent trades this day, I had to do a lot of juggling of my schedule. When all that was worked out, I sat down at my Starbucks, my heart started throbbing, my blood pressure already bad, I felt like it was skyrocketing as the opening bell drew closer. I really had not made up my mind which stock to buy first.  I’m sure there have probably been studies done on stock traders, those on the floor in NY and those sitting behind their computer screens with the hopes of making lots of money in a short amount of time. I guess the stress would be lessened if I didn’t need to make money. If my brokerage account had play money in it, if I could afford to lose it all, the pressure may not be so great.
After my trade, I felt a tinge of pride. I should have stopped and gone home. I could have told my bride how smart I was for picking a winner. But I had to make another trade and then another.  One of the four stocks I had settled on buying was American Mortgage Accepance Company (AMC). To make a short story shorter, I bought 250 shares @ $2.62 and sold it at $2.42. All this was done in just about 20 minutes. I had read that when you buy a losing stock, sell it immediately. Why didn’t I do this? I just looked to see what it is trading almost two months later, it’s at $2.42 but had gone down in early January to .72 a share. So for 2008, the stock is up 122%. To bad we couldn’t have all bought it at its low point.
 
 
Only out $50.00 on AMC, I decided to buy some more. I bought 250 shares of Blockbuster (BBI). I think this was the only stock I bought in two days in which I heeded the good advice given all daytraders — get out if it starts to fall. I did and the shares only fell 1.8 cents before selling. I just lost my commission money. Today, I checked out BBI and it’s @ $3.12.
 
 
In my next post, I’ll tell you how and where I exactly got lost and began investing and left the world of daytrading.
 

 

 

 

First Trade

Posted by The Lost Daytrader on Jan 31st, 2008
2008
Jan 31

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was sitting at Starbucks waiting to press "buy." I had finally determined I’d buy Empire Film Group (EFGU). It had been a big gainer this day. I did some research on it through my broker site. Looked good to me, but what did I know. I bought 100 shares at $2.96. A few minutes later, I sold 100 shares for $2.86. It’s now 45 days later and the stock is at $3.45. I didn’t lose much on this trade - only $24.00 in the hole. Moments later, it was 100 shares of Source Interlink Companies (SORC) @ $3.15. I sold it a few minutes later for $3.27. Minus commission, I was out $2.00. If I had bought 250 shares I would have made $16.00. The lesson I learned here is that the more shares I’d buy on stocks that gain a dime or so is better. But, that’s only if they go up. The risk was worth it if I sell immediately when it sinks. The odds of selling at the right time as it goes down is rare for a newbie like me. So for this first day of trading, I lost $26.00, but actually sold some stock for a profit, but the commission erased that profit. Would I be able to win at this game? Time will tell.

 

 

 

Remember

Posted by The Lost Daytrader on Jan 31st, 2008
2008
Jan 31

 

Now remember, I really don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve read up on day trading. I’ve read about ticks and selling quickly if the stocks move against you. I know about limit and market orders, but not too much indepth knowledge do I possess on these topics. It’s all superficial. The one thing I know a lot about is that the Steak n Shake stock I had, which was bought at $13 a share five years ago, had risen to $22 and finally discarded for a loss at $12.00 a share. How much worse could I do than letting that stock sit in a brokerage account? Well, I was about to find out.

 

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