# Stocks/Traders?



## Amoo316 (Jul 8, 2021)

Anybody else into this?

I'm not a day trader, at the moment, but I'm thinking about it. I'm currently building a long term portfolio, but have learned the basics and a lot of advanced methods of day trading to consider the option. To me it seems like it's all about going into any different day with numbers for bull and bear cases, identifying a pivot and trusting your numbers.

Anybody else dabble personally or professionally or just play long?


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## Monocot Master (Feb 28, 2021)

The ups and downs of short term trading make me anxious! I considered it, and experimented a bit, but I think you have to be committed. Was not for me. I just dollar-cost-average now with 24 purchases per year into a broad market index mutual fund. If I did delve into it, me personally, my two instruments likely would be mutual funds, and ETF's. Just don't have the stomach for individual stock! Good luck with it. With due diligence, I am sure you can do well.


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## Amoo316 (Jul 8, 2021)

Monocot Master said:


> The ups and downs of short term trading make me anxious! I considered it, and experimented a bit, but I think you have to be committed. Was not for me. I just dollar-cost-average now with 24 purchases per year into a broad market index mutual fund. If I did delve into it, me personally, my two instruments likely would be index mutual funds, and ETF's. Just don't have the stomach for stocks! Good luck with it. With due diligence, I am sure you can do well.


It's not bad. I found it much easier to start with 1 stock. I knew I wanted to buy Amazon while the market was in the toilet, so I studied the charts and found the support/resistance lines. When you know those, no matter which way the market goes, you know where the road bumps and potential destinations are.

I haven't made any decision yet as to whether I do it seriously, but it has helped me buy some really good companies all within the 5% ytd lows, just by doing a little bit of research. These are stocks I call my CORE, that I plan to hold for the long term, so even if we see another leg down, I'm likely to buy more at an even better price, then be upset. It definitely is nerve racking though, when you realize you bought something too high, sell it when it gets back to that level then have to wait a week or two for it to hit the number you're looking for.

Also who do we tag now to get a post moved? @Ware ? I meant to put this in the hobbies forum.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

I trade energy commodities for a global trading company.  It is very different than what I was taught in school or anything you'll ever hear being discussed on CNBC. I had good mentors teach me the process, and it works.

Because I know how much work I put into understanding one small niche of one single global energy market, and I know that each commodity market is made up of a bunch of people putting that work in, just like me, I know that I don't have ANY edge when it comes to trading things outside of my specialty, because there's someone just like me in whatevery equities market I want to trade. If I'm not putting in the work to beat that guy, I'm losing to that guy, and I should just stick to ETFs (There are even ETF specialists who will beat me in ETFs). So, since I get my feel of risk-taking in my day job, I just stick with long term mutual funds for my personal investments.

I'm not saying it can't be done, but I think it's an uphill battle if you want to do it part-time.

EDIT: Edit to add that it's not just me putting in the work to understand my market. I have two full-time analysts who work for me, (and they work even harder than me, probably because they don't reel mow their lawns)


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## SouthernTiftuf (12 mo ago)

I used to but with options back in college. Was very stressful but was how I made a lot of my money back then and I was young so the risk was worth it and I had time to follow the market nearly all day. Wouldn't be able to do that to do nor would want to since the risk is so much greater as I'm older. I agree with the post above about 1 stock I had a few I would follow constantly and was my bread and butter.


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## pennstater2005 (Jul 17, 2017)

Dabbled lightly when I first started investing and knew I wasn't cutout and when I realized that who I was buying/selling against were doing it for a living as @Deltahedge mentioned.

I've been straight Vanguard LifeStrategy Growth fund the last 12 years or so.


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## Amoo316 (Jul 8, 2021)

Yeah, I have my "long term" portfolio, which I limit to 10 stocks of companies I know very well. I add an 11th high Div stock going into times like this year, then pull it back out and redistribute at good buying opportunities.

I've also got a core of what I call "Motley Fool Stocks" which that site recommends every 2 days and see tons of volume. I don't own any of them long term, but I follow 3/4 of those as well because they are high volume and cheap so mistakes would be less costly.

I also very closely track the SPY, QQQ and SMH etfs, as they all effect my long term holdings, but they also move predictably.

I'm not planning on doing any day trading until we get back to 4600-4800 levels and I can stop putting every penny in to great companies on sale, but for something to do in the next bull market, day trading one of the etfs I mentioned might be an option. I really need to sit down and do the math and see if it's profitable enough to justify not just putting that money straight into something that will compound instead of grabbing slices here and there.

@Deltahedge does most of your trading involve utilizing and understanding support and resistance levels?

As an example, my day usually starts at 8:30 with me looking at the post/pre market, seeing what levels were tested overnight, figuring out where I think the daily pivot will be, then trying to find a "bear ball" number and a "bull ball" number. Then I try to figure out where each of those scenarios could be going.

I made these notes Thursday morning pre-market about SPY before open:

"Thieves have made two runs to try to gap us over 396.25. First run was a spike and immediate rejection. Second is a slow build up to it. Small ride of it then fall away. Market looks like it'll open right in that region. I would assume above 396.25 is the bulls up to 397.40. Below 392.25 will be the Bear ball. 394.40 is the pivot. That said, they made 2 runs up yesterday, 2 pre market, possibly 1 more off the bell. Does that set us up for a garden variety pullback to build more energy and try again later?"

Here's how Thursday played out:



Edit for clarity, on my personal charts, green is a prev breakdown candle low or prev high, yellow is high volume pivots/resistance, red is intermediate resistance levels.


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## Deltahedge (Apr 1, 2020)

Amoo316 said:


> @Deltahedge does most of your trading involve utilizing and understanding support and resistance levels?


My trading process does not include analysis of any charts for technical analysis. Since I'm in the commodity world, I have a very specific process for forecasting inventory of the commodity. The only, very rare, time I look at charts is when I notice the inventory forecast matching another point in history where inventory played out like I am forecasting, or, another point in history where the inventory forecast would have been a similar forecast to my current estimate, even if that prior forecast did not come true in the actual data. When I look at the charts in that scenario, I am never looking at outright price levels, or, fixed price. Fixed price doesn't usually matter to me, because I have other strategies that correlate much better with my process.

I know this is kind of a long answer for me to just say "No", but I wanted to give a little more detail on the reason.


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## Amoo316 (Jul 8, 2021)

Deltahedge said:


> Amoo316 said:
> 
> 
> > @Deltahedge does most of your trading involve utilizing and understanding support and resistance levels?
> ...


I appreciate the detailed response. Ironically that 397.40 number on my chart came from a set of resistance highs and lows I saw from March of 2021. Legit only way I had that number.

Are you in oil, Nat gas or other?

Commodities is something I tend to stay away from for all of the reasons you mentioned. I'd love to get into Copper and/or Lithium, but I'd be much better with a concentrated ETF for those things then I would trying to trade the commodity itself. It's just doesn't make sense for me to try to cherry pick something like a Freeport-Mac to get access or other when the reality is I don't know the sector well enough. I GLANCE at wti and brent daily as well as lumber daily, but outside of that I don't follow the prices of anything in the commodities sector.

Tech and Semis are my two major knowledge bases (plus a few of the things that are kinda in those categories but kinda not). I'd like to add Financials and Transport. I've at least started looking at transport, but I don't have the time right now to try to learn any new sectors with all the the clearance sales in my wheelhouse sectors.

I've learned enough to know all of the big "value investors" with public portfolios have financials exposure typically split between banks and one of the big 3 credit cards. I just don't know enough to know why yet.

Right now I basically forecast the SPY, QQQ and SMH daily. Understanding how those 3 etfs move or can move daily and knowing my individual stocks, helps setup my days.

I don't play any of the bull flag/bear flag/head and shoulders...etc games. I note them, but they're not part of my process. I focus on where price is and where it makes sense to go in one direction or the other.

Again, sorry to be long, but I guess you could say I take a day trader perspective to find good times to buy long term holds.


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## jerrywil (9 mo ago)

I don't know anything about stocks but would like to start investing one day. Any good sources where can i read about it? At the moment the only thing i am investing in is my own business and thanks to texting app for business it is going not bad actually. Hope our revenue will be even better next year.


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## RyanRoman (17 d ago)

My uncle is engaged in brokerage, though I'm not sure how much it fits this topic?


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## RyanRoman (17 d ago)

dublicate my bad


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## TabithaGross (18 d ago)

Actually, I do trading. I started studying it a long time ago (about 5 months I guess). Actually, I used to think it was way more complicated, but it turned out to be an easier skill to gain than I thought. First, my uncle advised me to download this app Mobile Personal Area FBS. It’s important to manage your data from the very beginning, he said. So now trading brings me about 5k a month on average. It’s enough to pay for my rent, but I want more. Btw, guys, do you earn enough money by trading?


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