Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Welcome Newbie Traders

Welcome to the "The Newbie Trader" The basic purpose of this blog is to help us "Newbies" learn to trade by interactively sharing and exchanging ideas, experiences and references. Feel free to leave your thoughts or ask questions as a beginning trader here. If you as excited about learning to trade as me this should be the start of something fun!

47 comments:

  1. I like APEI. It has three green arrows and has gone up over 30% in just 5 weeks.

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  2. So does MTZ and it is up over 40%.

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  3. Hey for Newbies posting. How long have you been trading and what were your biggest challenges to getting started? Is there anything you wish they told you before you started?

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  4. Both APEI and MTZ (among lots of others) took big hits today. Could begin to set up for a new bounce entry/opportunity. Even though market was down 189 the Vix is almost down to 40! I'm holding AA through earnings after the close. Should be interesting, I have my fingers crossed!

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  5. John,

    What a super idea! You and I have a similar 'former corporate' background. I've been investing for a number of years but decided after last fall's debacle to learn how to "do it right". I researched Investools and a number of other sites and came to the conclusion that Investools was 'head and shoulders' (pardon the pun) above all the others in terms of offerings and teaching you a system that you can adapt for yourself.

    If you'd like to know more, I'd be happy to share - I'll respond to your posting on the Friday forum with better contact info.

    Thanks again for starting this blog... great idea!

    Wes

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  6. I am confused on how to place stops. I am not using TOS. I already had an account with Scottrade. Does anyone else use Scottrade for buying and selling stocks?

    Also- this is a great idea. Thanks for proposing it.

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  7. Chewie,
    I used to use Scottrade. I didn't have any problems setting stops on stocks.

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  8. Charger,

    Is it the same as what is taught in the investools classes for buying/selling stock?

    Are you still using Scottrade?

    Thanks!

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  9. I used to trade with Scottrade. I only used the web interface to trade. If you place stops, and you make them GTC = "Good Till Canceled" you need to be aware, that Scottrade does cancel the stops on expiration Friday and you will have to re-enter them. Read the fine print or call them about that.
    At least that used to be that way when I was trading with them 1 year ago.
    I now use TOS and the reasons are pretty simple:
    1) lower commissions for stocks then Scottrade. TOS charges you 5,- per trade as Investools student.
    2) the TOS trading platform is just spectacular. The downloaded desktop version from Scottrade is still in the stone age compared to the TOS platform.

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  10. FYI Also be aware that TOS has different commission structures for options. You have to ask to get the best deal but usually it is pretty easy to get. I think the transition cost most people are paying is 1.50 an option trade but you can get a rate of 1.25 if you can and ask. Just call the trade desk and tell them you are with Investools and are, or plan to be actively trading. Every penny counts and commisions add up. I still have a small acount at scottrade but have also moved everything to TOS. I just don't think there is much comparison to the technical ability and services TOS offers.

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  11. And another thing about TOS.....
    Think or Swim wants it's traders to be sucessfull therefore they will make more trades,
    therefore they will spend more on commissions etc.
    As such they are very devoted to training. A lot of people using Investools and TOS don't realize that TOS does a lot their own option traing and much of it is FREE. Most is slanted towards high probability techniques as they are mostly experienced exchange traders and all are active top notch. Make sure you check out their training schedule link on the TOS plastform, their main web site or under www.optionplanet.com and www.redoption.com.

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  12. My name is Albert Brien, brand new at trading. Gave a finacial expert a good sum of money last May. It was down 40% in June (ETFs) I saw the Investools ad and enrolled in the web and investing foundation course. Then in November enrolled in BO, Trading rooms, One on One Coaching etc., and started trading in December. I am still above water, but hoping to formulate trading plans that will lead to more success. Trading Stocks and options (so far only Calls, Puts and Spreads.

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  13. Welcome Albert Fellow Newbie
    Not sure where you at right now but don't give up totally on stocks. Most financial advisors just sell set products, do not actively manage thier customers accounts and do not know how to adjust for the market but you can learn how to do this. (As a newbie I wish I had know this better before the 2008 crash too) As you move on in your education don't put all you efforts into options. This should only be a part of your ongoing portfolio activity. Its riskier "get rich" money bag activity. You should still consider looking to build and manage some capital/stock positions in your "stay rich" money bag. You will find that many of the investools options trainers heavily trade and hold stocks themselves. Now is a great time to be taking advantage of playing some bargin stocks and learn how to actively manage them. Hey easy for me to say but give it some consideration. I went hog wild on options and have now pulled back a little to keep some focus on the stock basics and it has been paying of for me right now. Personally I think mastering the stock basics will put us in a better position to move on in options. If your not already doing so I recommend you attend or review at least 1 IF trading room a week even if you have moved on to BO or Advanced Options. Not sure where you linked on to the blog from but I like Brett Patterson's Friday IF Trading Room. It also has a great active community group. Also, check out the Real Time Traders Group. Its another very active site. And, since picking the right stock and knowing when to enter and exit is key to sucessuful trading make sure you give technical analysis equal or more time.
    John

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  14. Chewis,
    You asked:
    Is it the same as what is taught in the investools classes for buying/selling stock?

    Brokers don't tell you where to set stops. The mechanics are different than they are with what you see in Investools because Invvestools uses thinkorswim. Scottrade also has BUY and SELL LIMIT orders, MARKET ORDERS, BUY STOP orders, SELL STOP orders, and TRAILINGSTOP orders. The buttons you push are different as can be expected but the operational aspects are the same.

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  15. My name is Jerry Hayman and I live in Sequim, WA. I have had Investools access for a number of years but started my education in earnest last September. Then in late December moved up to the PHD so I could learn more. Like John, I am also watching Brett's IF trading room every Friday; I also like his AO trading room on Thursday. I am still mostly doing paper trades with a few real money trades here and there. I am currently in class with Scott Thompson for the 6 week Adv Options Technical Online Course which started this week. I watch Scott's BO Friday capstone session every week too. Next week I will be attending the Adv Option Workshop in Seattle. I had never done a single trade of any kind before I joined Investools so I must say I have come a long way to date but am finding out every day how much more there is to learn. John this is a great idea and I hope it will lead to a lot more knowledge for all of us.

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  16. Hi Jerry. Glad you like it and look forward to your comments. Sounds like you started similarly to me. The live classes are great because you get two intense days with an instructor and usually they give you a addition insight that is not covered in the online classes. Since I've been involuntarily retired around Nov. I have had a lot of time to devote to learning and I spend most days 5 or so hours almost every day listening and participating in trading rooms so that's why you may see me there a lot. I'm a bit of a ham so sorry for the distracting one liners some times!! :-) There are a lot of great trading capstones and community rooms but I can tell you it can become addictive, obsessive, overwhelming and unrealistic to try and keep up with them all. I think it can also become a bit unproductive to try and learn everything at once. My advice from my short experience is to learn the basics well before you move on to the next step. I went gun ho ahead to advanced stuff only to realize I didn't spend enough time on the basics first and actually right now the basics are working out better for me. Also, if your in Investools don't try to do it all!! Plan and manage your time for the best effective learning. Better to be the expert of a couple than the master of none! Pick a couple of your favorite teachers who deal with what you really want to know and stick with them. I had some personal dialogue with Brett when I was a little frustrated and first starting to try and get my head straight and he helped me out. I like him too because he is teaching both ends of the spectrum from IF to AO to High Probability. Also stay active and hook up with one or two community rooms. I think interaction is an important element of learning. One community group I really like, that is not a trading room site , is Real Time Traders. Check it out. Its one of the most active groups, lots of advice and feed back, some advanced teaching, great guest speakers and is growing fast. Check it out. All this said still consider the source. I am a major newbie just like you guys so, while I think I'm a good team builder and coach I'm not that great at following my own advice! It amazes me when I finally think I know what I'm doing how I can make such a bone head move.(Like yesterday!!) But such is the lot of the newbie trader and why I started this site. We all need to help each other make that transition from bone head to egg head!! Have a great Holiday Weekend!! PS enjoy your Seattle class and give us some feed back on who the instructor was and what he highlighted.

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  17. My favorite instructor is Cameron May on wednesday at 6:00. Unfortunately Brett Pattison and Scott Thompson run into each other on Friday. Jason Money is great on Thursdays at 6:00 and I am still trying to understand Ken Rose's approach on Mondays at 4:30. Where can I find something decent to understand the Analyze tab on TOS?

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  18. Albert,
    I don't have the answer for you on the analyze tab but I wanted to remind you that all the trading rooms are recorded so if you can't be there in person you can still follow your favorite coaches by watching the recordings at your own schedule. I must say right now Scott and Brett are my top 2 favorites! For technicals Scott's opinion is that Dave Johnson & John McNichol are the ones to follow.

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  19. John,
    I know what you mean above - I have experienced some of that already. I do feel the trading rooms have been the single most important aspect to my education so far for increasing my knowledge base. But Investools gives us so much to help for many different learning styles so we can pick and choose what we need at any particular time in our progress.
    I'll let you know how the Workshop comes out next week.

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  20. Albert Have you gone through the Think or Swim "Desktop Learning Centers" tutorials for that? If not you need to check them out. Go to the help tab at the top of the TOS paper trading sceen on the far right tab and click help. When that screen comes up you will see a bright logo like a billboard at the top right for these tutorials which says launch thinkDesktop learning center..click on it and another screen will come up with a bunch of tabs, hit any tab and under them are a bunch of tutorials for that part of the TOS platform. There is one for the analyse tab there. Also Mike Turvey does a lot of examples with the analyse tab on his Monday AO capstone. Just so happens last Monday night his whole capstone was about using the analyse tab. Its recorder so check it out. I think you will get a lot out of it. He does a similar class all about using the tab every couple months. I think the last one was Nov 5th. Hope that helps! Happy Easter
    John

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  21. For those of you who may not know or follow Dave Johnson here is the link to his blogsite. He manages the Active Trader Site and usually has some good insight on the market. This link will take you to his daily blogsite where he give his opinions on the markets and some select stocks. One of his favorite strategies to trade is the bull flag pattern. Check it out. http://www.chartsignals.blogspot.com/

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  22. I do not have access to the AO trader rooms. I do follow Dave Johnson's ChartSignals site. I am in a quandary now. Legged in buying 400 shares of FAS over the last couple of weeks. In at an average price of 5.77. bought at 6.20, 6.84. 5.25, 4.80 in that order without a tgt or stop. Now I have moved a stop three times, the last time to 9.10. It is trading at 9.75. Who has a magic ball. I would like to move the stop up a bit more, but am afraid of getting kicked out on a temporary pull back. But by the same token would like to protect my winnings. Where are we going with financials tomorrow? Albert

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  23. I think I will try to hang around FAS awhile, financials have the potential to keep flying. BTW the two most important things I have learned are to 1. protect your capital. Jan. and Feb. I went gunho and had 12 losses in a row. Tough months, but my rule at that time was a $40.00 per trade loss, so $50.00 with commissions. I do hate trading paper money. Different dynamic. 2. The second one is to be totally detached. Once you have your entry and exits and reward/risk set let it run. I probably fail periodically when there is a big run up. I have a tendency to remove my target and keep moving my stop up, like the problem I have now with FAS.
    We have so few occasions for home runs, that I forgive myself.

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  24. I made some money on a naked put on FAS earlier this month and have been looking to get back in. I may do an April naked put tomorrow on it. Sounds like you got in a great prices but remember its a triple leveraged stock so it can also change quick if it reverses. You have made a great return so far and I would be wanting to make sure I don't give it back. Consider keeping at least part of your position stopped pretty close or even take some off the table. Worst case you bank the profit and do it again. You will never regret taking some profit as much as seeing it lost if it goes the other way. Sounds like your playing it right. Nice trading there!

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  25. Left the stop at 9.10. Want it all. This morning I am only 37 cents away from it but I will not take the profit on partial shares. It either reverses and goes back up or I am out. I have a covered call on GE at 13.00 that may be taken out. Also have naked puts on GMCR. A CALL on WMT that scares me. An April CALL on GM which will expire worthless, unless there is a miracle in the next few days.

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  26. Albert Looks lke you got stopped out but I think it was a good play! Its @ 7.83 and may drop a little more tomorrow. With a little luck you may get a chance to do it all over!
    John

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  27. Charger,

    Thanks for the comments and reply to my inquiry regarding scottrade vs TOS. I just returned from a vacation, didn't look at the market once, so the vacation was REALLY relaxing.
    I wish Scottrade had a paper trading area.... Oh well, I guess I could always switch to TOS...

    Chewie.

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  28. Last week I attended the AO Workshop in Seattle. Our instructor was Linda McCoy (her past life was a Visa executive) and she did a great job. I can't believe all the energy she has and a lot of knowledge about advanced options. I would encourage anyone to take this workshop when it fits in your education plan. We went through Iron Condors, Butterfly spreads, Calendar spreads, LEAPS and Selling Puts. Of course, there was a discussion on how the greeks effect options. Most of these strategies are built on vertical spreads so we started with a complete overview of those and then went from there. They also had Bob Groves from TOS there for a 2 hour demo of TOS platform from 6-8 PM the first night. Great class! I highly recommend it.

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  29. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  30. Trying to get Investools students from the Boston, MA, Portland, ME, Manchester, NH areas together for meetings once a month,
    http://www.meetup.com/The-Kingston-Investing-Meetup-Group My home phone is 603-642-5434

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  31. In HANS right now bought at $34.00, sold the $39.00 May covered CALL and the May 32 PUT. HANS has risen $39.89. Do not really want to get Called out. Sold CALL for $1.22 and would cost about $2.60 to buy it back right now. I suppose buy back will get more expensive the more it rises. Should I expect to get called out?

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  32. It is possible anytime but they say odds are it won't happen until expiration. However, I have talked to various people at workshops that have been called out early so it does happen.

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  33. HANS is now at 40. I do not expect it to fall. If HANS gets to 43.00 without my being called out I will buy the CALL back. I originally sold it for 1.22. Buy back will be about 1.70 and the stock will be worh 130 more than it is worth now.

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  34. John, Be patient with this. Give it a chance. It is a bit difficult to use. Newbies are afraid to ask totally stupid questions.

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  35. Thanks Albert. I'm not giving up on it . Its a journey. Like I said also this site is aceessable to otheres that dont' have Investools which i think is a good thing too. There are some good ideas that come form the outside sometimes too.

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  36. Albert on the Hans trade. Remember you have an earnings report on Hans next week on the 4th? Are you trend or swing trading and are you going to hold through earnings? It held it's own today so If the market is up tomorrow I'm betting it keeps rising on anticipation of a good earnings report. At earning who knows which way it will go. If your trend trading then I guess you have to be satisfied with giving some back every once and a while but lately I'm finding more satisfaction with taking the sure things and moving on to another trade rather than giving too much back. I have had a few that moved up well and pulled back leaving me with nothing. I can live with it but I don't like it. Something to be said for Rule One, don't lose any money. The sum of a lot of smaller to mid sized winners can really mount up and there is always another stock or trade to get into or opportunity to reenter on a pull back if you take your money when you can. Consider if you only made 3% on a trade per month and did a 3% trade every month you would make over 30% on that money. I have been doing naked puts on several lower priced high quality stocks the last couple months and really starting to like the strategy. If I make 5 to 10% a month on them it will add up by the end of the year and if I get put the stock so what, they are great stocks cheap and bound to rebound. You just need to ne sure you like the stock and can cover a potential assigment.

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  37. All my swing trades have become trend trades with covered Calls and naked Puts. BTW sometimes I am successful posting here sometimes not. That may be one of the problems. Wrote a long report on HANS last night and it did not post it. If I let HANS go my total profit on it will be $650.00. If I don't it will be about 300 and I start over again.

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  38. I'm having some of the same feelings with my trades that start out as swingers but more and more I hate gving anything back. Eg I bought NFLX on the bounce and it was up over $500 at one pint in the last couple days but closed today up about $20!! This has happened a few times and I'm trying to decide if its not better to take the sure thing $500 and look for a reentry or another stock. can't decide and thats why I'm a Newbie rookie!!

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  39. John, I know what you mean. Maybe you are finding out you are more suited to be a swing trader instead of a trend trader. Buy on the bounce off support and get out at or near resistance. I have been doing both trend and swing because I feel I need to learn to be more patient with the trend trades (you have to be willing to give some (to a lot) back to ride the trend up as far as it will take you.
    However, I will tell you my favorite trading is the Scott Thompson 1 ATR system. I have done the best with that both up and down (the problem is that it doesn't work very well in neutral markets so then I fall back on all manner of verticals. I am in and out in a 3-5 days or less in trending markets. If you are not familiar with Scott you can find him teaching the basic option capstone Friday - look in the archives for ATR trades to get his system.

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  40. I think it has a lot to do with nervous engery. I just feel the need to be trading all the time. I love it but it makes me impatient. Got to learn to control that.

    John

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  41. Oop!! I guess I blew the Newbie Blog over on Investools. I do not think they enjoy the rambling. The group is too serious. I actually respect them for that. Just means it is no place to really let it out. I will not post over there again. Albert

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  42. Hi guys. I'm here at a basics options IT course in Pitt's. Sorry I haven't been posting in a while. I agree with you Albert. I think they are a little over protective about that site but I would not stop posting what ever you want. Those are the crys of onlt a few and they are not Newbies as such . I think there are a lot more who were interested. As I posted there, I don't see that post as a BLog as such. Its just a line of commentary that will eventualy run its course as new comments or questions are posed. How boring and ineffective would that site be without lively conversation to draw users in. I think our brief flury of postings there brought that and helped out the commuinity group overall.
    Trade on!
    John

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  43. Well things have been pretty quite here. someone asked me if I was still doing the blog. I guess so but things have cooled off. Anyone have any pressing issues or comments?

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  44. I am wondering the same thing - if this blog is still active or on a summer hiatus. I am a new to investools as of March 2009. What I've read from other's posting has been very helpful. I'm not very experienced I've let my broker handle my investments. As a result my investments are in shambles. I am now doing what I can to take control of my investments, educate myself on investing, and began to invest for success.

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  45. Hey Monica The Blog has become sort of speratic because there are just to hard to stay active on too many community sites. (That and I just got married and took off for my honeymoon) If you get this I really recommend you come join us in the Real Time Trader's Community Group in Invetools. Its a great group of mixed experience traders with quite a few Newbies and lots of interaction. Its a great place to field questions, get answers, learn and grow. Come join us there!! John

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  46. Well I haven't been here for a while but its pretty interesting it still ranks at the top of the leader board. We will see what we see

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