Beginner's Luck.....will take advice

[sisterwin2]

As the title states, I am a beginner trader. Nurse by profession so dont make a lot of money. To add to this I took two yrs off to play in the Caribbean on my sailboat and now back to work. I have been following this forum and think its the best I have seen thus far and best of all its free. Here are my position:

Sold
HOM -- 2% gain... stopped out
IIJI----70% gain.... again stopped out but didnt mean too....learning curve.

Holding:

Ge---inheirance cost base at about 25$ (70% of portfolio)
DVN--- in at 44.10
D---in at 35 drip
csx--in at 22.06
Siri--in at 4.25ish
CIB---in at 22.9
[email protected]
PEP @ 40.
RMH @ 15.
TNOG @.005 (will not mess with penny stocks again)
JSDA @ 4.99

Plan of action is to sell about 300 shares of GE after the first of yrs and try to turn it in to 15-20% gain like THE HUGE ONE in a two month period of time, over and over and over...doing my homework and learning how to read charts etc...look up just about every stock mentioned on the forum for learning and just to get a feel. I am with Ameritrade, really miss the free market edge delux.. I do not subscribe to anything that cost money but think I may need to.
I am not in Credit card debt, only owe on house and boat and daily living expenses... (this includes beer)

1) what do you suggest I subscribe to, to help me weed out loosers..find winner etc? I hear mentioned, poorman's and fool.com
2) Once I make a gain on a stock... how low should I set sell stops and still give room for fluctuation of the daily market.. i.e.. I set sell stop too low with IIJI and it triggered while I was at work today.. I think there is still upside to the stock. Still made 70% gain but if I was at home I would have raised the sell stop to 12.8.. (in @7.3).

thanks for any input... dont mind being spanked if I am about to make stupid move or could of done it a better way.

Dena.

[spikefader]

Hey Dena.

Don't have time for a lengthy post, but just quickly before I go do some stuff, GE is actin' bullish and if it were me I would hold off till it's about 39.00 before I take those 300 shares off.

And in the meantime, if you wanna learn charting, then papertrade papertrade papertrade. Don't be in a hurry to jump in to the charting game until you've really got a lot of paper experience. You'll make lots of mistakes, which is OK, but if you papertrade for several months and post in a thread to stay accountable to 'the audience and critics' you will develop a discipline that you may not currently have. And without discipline you are gonna increase the risk of losing money. The market's gonna be there for you, so don't rush this, charting and trading off indicators etc ain't easy. Discipline is everything if you're donig TA trading. FA is a whole lot different in my opinion.

Oh, and by the way, there's some awesome trades I see in your list. Congrats! You are doin' somethin' right!

[sisterwin2]

Hey Dena.



Oh, and by the way, there's some awesome trades I see in your list. Congrats! You are doin' somethin' right!

Let me list my loosers to be fair.....

TNOG... in at .003....only bought 100 shares...... lost more with commission then the stock is worth... was a pipe dream
WCIIQ...... 25 shares... no where to be found
DPAC 125 shares... in at 1.22 again no where to be found
QUSTQ....100 shares....dont remember what I paid but lost again...
I am not sure but believe these were my first buys. D was my first drip exposure when my brother gave me one share in 97' I put 5,000 in drip to save for boat. When I saw the results after one yr I couldnt bring myself to cash in to buy the boat...... just worked more hours to reach my goal.
I began one yr ago playing around with the market using beer money. Now I am so hook on reading all the news, Cramer the screamer, morning watch squalk box....I cant seem to do anything else when sitting at pc but research. Now atleast I can help out with that D2ol while I am reading the news of the day.

TY for your input and looking forward to the spankings sorta. I like the Ideal of a paper portfolio.....I will began and post my false portfolio.

Dena

[skiracer]

Are you getting realtime streaming quotes anywhere. Spike led me to Medved Quote Tracker. It's free and you can get a live realtime trading platform connected to your brokerage to trade from with live realtime streaming quotes as they happen and live realtime intraday charts all for free. You could set up watchlists and portfolios to paper trade from very easily.

If you wanted to spend the $29.95 a month you could subscribe to Stockcharts.com and get their realtime charting service. It's as good as any of the best ones. I like it the best an it comes with a very complete knowledge base on the technical aspects of charting, candlesticks etc..

Yahoo is as good as it gets for charts, technical advice, everything financial about all the stocks an all for free. Their Market Tracker realtime live streaming quotes are just $9.95 a month if you wanted to pay that for a streaming quotes service but Medved Quote Tracker is just as good and free.

Nothing beats putting up the cash and learning from the emotions involved in doing that but like Spike said there is a whole lifetime to do that. You can do both but you'll never lose any money paper trading an doing that as you develope your chart interpreting and technical skills into your own strategys and discipline would be the way to go initially. Starting your own thread and posting your ideas and paper trades will get you alot of imput from all of us which will definitely hone your skills.

There is so much free info on all of this out there on the internet that it can be to much and ends up being to much to absorb. In the end that can be detrimental so ease into things an ask alot of questions here before taking any big leaps. It seems that you are on the right path so stay the course and keep up the good work.

You might want to pick up a book on Technical Analysis. Martin Pring's, "Introduction to Technical Analysis", is a good one to begin with an is easy reading.

I would tell you to train yourself to become emotionally detached in your trading but that's hard to learn and do in a world where you have to be emotionally attached and sensitive to so many other things. It's hard to separate but you must train yourself to be able to do that and be in as complete control of your emotions as you can be. Keeping that in your mind long enough and maybe sometime in the future it will become almost second nature.

[billyjoe]

sister,
Some advice from a non expert. You can learn from my mistakes.

1. If you think you've got it figured out, be scared. Something that you never expected will completely change your way of thinking

2. Stick to your stops. You really don't want to hear my horror stories

3. Never buy a stock that is touted as "the next best thing" 95% of the time you'd be better off shorting "the next best thing"

4. Never buy a stock that is down, but will skyrocket when a certain event occurs, such as an engine that runs on water , the polar ice cap melts, stuff like that

5. Never buy an el cheapo stock unless you can see a proven record of it's growth in earnings , market share , or equivalent progress

6. Run away if a broker calls you with a hot stock tip , you can just walk briskly if it's a relative or friend

7. Although these may appear humorous , they're serious suggestions

8. I know you'll have to learn from your own experiences, but remember you sometimes just have to believe. Like when momma said "don't play with the snake with the rattle"

billyjoe

[sisterwin2]

Sure hate the IIJI stoped out...... would be 2.00 higher today... I knew this had more uptrend to it

dena

[sisterwin2]

I am thinking about buying INPC..

Reasons.

Earning forcast by many different site is about 25.50 mean..
Chart is not a short now it seems but all I have found so far seems to rank it as a buy with positive sentiment.
I can offord it (heheeh)

company seems to be getting out of the red.

any comments?

Dena

[sisterwin2]

Dvn

DVN just declared a dividend.... this is the first that I am aware of. This is great. I take it that it means they have extra MONIES???


I have about 70 shares (not a drip for me, not sure that is avail) This divident will help with cost of trading in my account atleast.

Dena

[mrmarket]

DVN just declared a dividend.... this is the first that I am aware of. This is great. I take it that it means they have extra MONIES???


I have about 70 shares (not a drip for me, not sure that is avail) This divident will help with cost of trading in my account atleast.

Dena

Generally when a stock increases their dividend, this is a good thing and indicates confidence in cash flows. The reason I say this is most managers know that decreasing the dividend is a kiss of death for a stock price so they don't increase dividends without being sure that they won't have to decrease them in the future.

Having said that, I am wary of large dividend increases because to me it signifies fewer growth opportunities for a company to re-invest in.

[IIC]

INPC was my contest pick for the week...I did not buy it yet...but it will be a winner IMO...Grat turnaround potential...Doug(IIC)

I am thinking about buying INPC..

Reasons.

Earning forcast by many different site is about 25.50 mean..
Chart is not a short now it seems but all I have found so far seems to rank it as a buy with positive sentiment.
I can offord it (heheeh)

company seems to be getting out of the red.

any comments?

Dena

[sisterwin2]

INPC was my contest pick for the week...I did not buy it yet...but it will be a winner IMO...Grat turnaround potential...Doug(IIC)

Actually, your where I heard of it first and I began looking it up. Kramer just trashed on his show so I am looking for a bit of a dip and think I will buy a few shares.

So, if I make any money on it I owe it to you....


ty

Dena

[IIC]

I will just keep it on watch and wait for a better time:

http://trimurl.com/3H6