I can be Huge too

[antioch6]

So I daytraded everyday this week. I was up a few hundred dollars and down a few hundred dollars. I made sure that every moment I was watching the market, I was inside a trade or close to a trade. The commissions were adding up and after a couple mistakes I finished the week up after depositing more money in my account. I feel more prepared than ever to trade the next week, and the next month, and the next year.

My account is $2,959.77 and my income is $1,200 a month; $300 a week. I don't really need anything except money for a house, and a car.

I'm passing my days well with eggs and ham and cheese, milk, orange juice, gatorade and sandwiches; spaghetti and wine. I organized my trading platform to use Dow Jones, Gold, U.S. Dollar, U.S. Oil, and U.S. Wheat. Instead of dsytrading, I will be buying futures when they are going up, and shorting them when they go down. I've seen a lot of investing in my time, and I've decided that waiting long periods of time for goods to go up is a huge waste of time. Instead, if I'm going to trade, it's going to be on a full time base, and I will always be trading something in the market or at the house. Old fashioned investing doesn't help anyone and in my opinion slows you down.

I don't know how often I'll post my reports but I expect a meaningful result on a yearly basis. With that said, I'll go over my previous years results:

2024: $3,000 to $1,000
2023: $100,000 to $3,000 plus a Jeep Car
2022: $40,000 to $172,000

I hope this has been enjoyable and safe for everyone.

[antioch6]

So I am finally back from day trading with some conclusions. First, there is a huge waste of time in day trading. I don't have enough reason to wait for boring economic news to come out and for surprise 40 point moves in the market to wait around all day. Although I did develop some strategies that turn breakeven from non stop trading, my main finding is that there is no advantage to trade on momentum, up or down. These days everyone knows about buying on breakouts and there is no one left to buy in after the first wave. That means investing reverts back to old buy and hold investing. Trading on new news affecting earnings, watching p/e ratios, and looking to the future.

My main problem has been a rush to invest from my father, who is the only one giving me money. Now he is in a crazy home and I'm back to where I started, since 2010, waiting for a large stock market drop to bring valuations to attractive levels. I haven't seen one good company worth investing in since 2022 and I'm still waiting. Earlier this year, I thought FFTY looked good, based on it's p/e ratios of 17, and considered the above average level of companies in its portfolio. That was mostly on investors business daily type people creating a market for the stock at high levels. It's not perfect but there are not many alternatives if you care about value.

The market has been mixed with the Russell 2000 and smaller companies going through a loose wide range of ups and downs while the s&p and ai start to swing up and down but end up higher.
I am starting to see patterns between my finances each year and the overall stock market story. It has been a desperate climb from the 2022 lows based on housing prices and ai investing hype, backed by the government. There has been a huge quantity of loose money in the economy. Maybe that is the nature of our economy, large sums of money distributed carelessly. Then there is the eventual sales push and a removal of the money leading to care. Now, at this point in the stock market and the economy, I have gone through my highs and lows of wealth. I have no money, but I have everything I need, paid for. It's like looking at a machine in parts instead of being part of a machine. The stock market is hopeful, and the rise from the 2022 low to the 2025 high is based on optimism and hope, but there is not a reveal in earnings yet. I think of MrMarket being cautious on stocks, and now it seems so obvious, because of the earnings. I might be a little jealous of Louetta, who can trade high p/e companies and make money, while I am trying to short HYFM and EL. I was doing okay several times until I got sent to the hospital. Well this time around investing is a hobby to spend time. I enjoy looking for stocks and running a stock screener. As far as I'll ever go when it comes to work.
Part of my fault in trading has been not needing the money, so I've had no motive, but I also avoid all the immoral things that go with making money off someone's losses. So again, I don't need any money, but investing in a company is exciting and fun to me. Aside from my supermarket and online stores, I don't use any other businesses.

One thing I discovered in day trading is, if you are trading for the thrill like Jesse Livermore, you'll find it just as easy if you trade on a simulated program. When backtesting momentum strategies in thinkorswim in the simulated function, I found trading a programmed strategy by hand was as far as anyone can go in trading. The quick prices moving both ways and taking a chance to press the buy and sell buttons was all I really wanted to do.

I like predictable reliable strategies, and the one I keep going back to is value. What is value? It is a tactic based on the value of a business after it has gone bankrupt. Once all the products are sold, or when all the services are no longer needed, a business has a value. To me, that means it gives people something. Like people that are still paying for their AOL dial up service, or everyone still filling up their cars with gas, there is a reason why things stay. They give people utility, which is the basis of our modern economics.

So which companies are good to invest in? I don't see any value right now in my screener, at least the ones showing up with relative strength. Surprisingly, the companies that look good have poor relative strength like Sprout's Farmer's Market SFM or Conoco Phillips COP. These companies showed up in my short sell screen, but they used to be in my buy screen, so I was surprised. Maybe there is something wrong with the businesses, like something specific to Sprout's or a move away from oil but I can't think of anything for COP. That is mostly what it looks like with things on the buy screen like SONY with a higher p/e and up 100%+ from where I was trying to buy them in October 2022. So again I can't say there is merit in using momentum because of my experience with missing things that were crashing and losing on things that were trending higher. With all that said, I am using MarketSurge screener to find the best stocks to buy.

[antioch6]

VZ looks like the stock I might be able to retire on if I ever get my chance to tell my mom to buy it at a low price. I did a cash flow to price screen and started going through companies. Companies with a yield around 9% and higher that were in business I know. As a final comment on SFM and COP looking low, they still actually look high to me. Most of the market looks like a great short opportunity right now because the cash yields are incredibly low and the stock prices are falling. This year I think we can say in hindsight will be the year things started to head toward normal levels of valuation from p/e levels of 27-45 on average. When I went through my scans this time, there are several p/es in the 15s and even 12s down from average levels of 17 to 22 back in 2023.

To louetta - I remember we were commenting about Verizon back in 2019 when it was around 60, and we both thought it was not a risk because of the dividend of 5%. Well the debt was unbearable and again, looking back, the cash yield, (the amount of cash generated by a business versus the price you pay for the entire business) was too low to justify the price you had to pay in that time. But now Vz is 40 and it was as low as 30.135. My friend that was with me back in 2019 wanted to buy it now that it's down but that is mostly because he likes to buy when things are down, not based of the value or the prospect. I think we can all agree Verizon is a stable business that has a moat because of the high quality of its data and the speed that is provided to customers. I was too negative on the chart because the price was weak and I hadn't looked at the company through a value screen in a few years. I went through their financial statements on morningstar.com including their income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement. It has been a while but in 2018 I started learning value investing and learned about all the ways to calculate cash yields which were kind of confusing to me at the time. I saw that their income was steady and growing slightly. I saw their cash generated was attractive. Then I looked at their balance sheet to incorporate cash, cash equivalents, and debt into my price calculation. They have been paying down their debt and their cash was still low, but they had a strong asset in receivables, which I can easily imagine are all the accounts for Verizon families paying a month after services are used.

After adding non cash charges, depreciation, and amortization, and subtracting capital expenditures, Verizon has a steady 21 Billion in cash produced each year. Next, They have 40 Billion in current assets, which is mostly cash and receivables, and a little in from inventory. Last, after 5 years their debt is only 122 billion dollars. VZ has a market cap of 172.92 Billion today. That means the price to buy the entire company is 172.92 Billion dollars. Their cashflow of 21 Billion is the income you are buying. But first you have to add the current assets and subtract the debt they have. 172.92 Billion is the price, then 40 Billion in current assets is removed from the price because you can consider them as cash because it is cash and receivables which are promises to pay the Verizon bills due in a month. 172.92 - 40 = 132.92. Then we add the debt to the price, because if you buy the entire company, you are buying the debts. 132.92 + 122 = 254.92. The entire price of the company is 254.92 Billion dollars, and the income in cash verbage is 21 Billion dollars. So that gives us a yield of 8.23% a year. I am excited when I see Verizon;s chart, because I think it found a short term low at 30.135 and now it's 41.01. That means if the market is topping like I finally think it is, Verizon could test that low at 30.135, and the value of the business would stay the same, or actually increase. The yield at the price of 30.135 is 10.03%, which is not even that high. That means the yield is average now, and it could go to good if it only sees the low that formed not long ago, only in October 2023 when the Fed started saving the market, and when prices got pushed to these unimaginable high levels. In all that time, from October 2023 to November 2025, Verizon went to 47.355. That's a 50% increase based on nothing except buying stocks because they were going down. This is further supported by the evidence from my friend that has inherited his parents money, is a doctor, and has several millions to invest. He buys stocks when they are down, and he buys them because the story is good. He wanted to buy Solar companies the last time we went over opportunities, which shows you what younger people want to invest in. A.I., Nuclear, Solar, when they are falling. Now he is actually getting good and picking stocks in his field of expertise. He looks at the p/e ratios. I think that is going to be and already is being the next conversation about stocks from the younger investors with millions, is p/e ratio. I still think this is out of the norm, because even back in 2022, my friend was calling me out for thinking Google had too high a p/e at 17. 17 is high. Especially when they had no growth at the time and no prospect of future growth. Anyways. Back to Verizon, I think they are the perfect stock that represents the entire U.S. economy. They are chosen by middle class families that have disposable income, that watch their expenses, and still like quality. Not everyone is a Value investor. Back in 2009, people bought Verizon because they were looking at Quality companies. Honestly, not much has changed in my life since back then. Verizon has grown , butt they still had that enormous debt. Now with the U.S. deficit getting out of control and the interest on the payments in threat of escalating out of control, I finally, yes, finally, finally, see the timing to end the debt crisis that appeared in 2008. All the worst case scenarios of the hidden debt in the system can finally be purged, and a new cycle of growth can begin, most likely led by A.I.. Even though the debts have been swept away piece by piece with each federal stimulus program, and by fake crisis like the Corona 19 virus and the import Tarriffs, let's compare the success of Canslim investing in the 90s vs through this "bull market" of from 2009 to 2025. There was really no success because there wasn't enough growth, and there weren't enough new traders to buy high. Well things are changing now, and I seriously believe The bear market for stocks that started in 2007 Is coming to an end. The idea that started the crisis is debt, but we are at the end of the debt cycle, which can only be followed by a growth cycle. Global stocks. The majority of stocks. Which if you look haven;t changed much since 2007 or even since 2000. The only things that have gone up are the s&p, and tha'ts even mostly from p/e expansion and even recently from the A.I hype.

So what I am saying is, me who has stubbornly been a bear since 2015, and has waited for the debt crisis of 2008 to fully resolve since 2008, is at last, literally at last, seen the bullish case. I can say there was literally not a single new bear since 2023, so those should be the low end of a range we are in. If we retest that low in the coming years on one final financial calamity, it should be the opportunity of a lifetime to buy stocks. The problem is there is not much worth buying at reasonable prices, but I think Verizon will be the only stock that makes sense in that environment until the new A,I, or let's say innovative growth companies that first appear will, appear. Target is another area I will convince my Mom to buy. Verizon and Target, at good prices, with high dividend yields, when the entire stock world is coming out of bankruptcy.

[antioch6]

I wasn't able to execute my strategy with my family's money in 2018 up until 2022 because I was too confident that I would have a chance to buy stock during a market crash, It was too much money to risk, and looking back I wonder why I wanted to invest in the stock market at all in the first place. You might call the Corona Crash a buying opportunity, but I was distracted by things in life and I assumed that if there was such a big crash, someone in my family would tell me about it. Now I am complacent about breaking even and only just extracting enjoyment from my strategies. Sometimes I wonder why I even get involved with stocks but there is nothing else to do at the bank, so it must be worthwhile. I want a formula that makes money consistently but I think by the time I would create one, it would be time to change it before I could write it down. First I want something. I don't want anything right now, but there must be something to do inside the House, Hotel, Bank area. I called a professional cleaning Agency today and found their prices to be $65 per hour for each person, with a minimum of $260 per job. This seems good considering the quality of cleaning but I am left wondering what I will do once everything is done... I have food and I have money. Maybe I just want something to do with my money. The stock market hasn't been a fun place to buy and sell because I have lost my money too fast. Usually I lose thousands of dollars in less than an hour and there is no way to win them back fast enough. So that is a not fun way to spend money. Instead, I can trade stocks in a simulated account and get just as much fun out of betting without losing any money. I've now just taken out my second Chipotle order from earlier today and that's exactly what I wanted. 30 minutes later I'm back and I note there is not one thing I want from the stock market. I was just hungry writing this post the entire time.

I've not sure what to do with my stock screener. I'd like to set something up to party with MrMarket but I just don't see the perfect way.

[BlueWolf]

The market has been whipsawed by some major news cycles over the last few years, which has made it hard to trade at times, especially using technical indicators. And I agree that when the market moves downward it is generally much faster than when the moves upward. It’s been frustrating for sure. I still do some short term trading, but these days I mostly like picking good stocks and then holding them for the long term. What I absolutely hate is watching profits build and then giving it all back by sitting through a correction. I’ve been experimenting with various signals for closing long term positions and then re-opening them after a correction and I’ve had some success, but it’s not universal. I haven’t found the holy grail yet, but like you, I’m still looking.

I could just throw all my money into an ETF like most sane people, and just check my quarterly statements, but where’s the fun in that? There’s the rub. Trying to figure out and trade the markets is damned addictive. It’s like a slap-in-the-face challenge. Simulated trading is one way to scratch the itch, but there are three problems with it that I have found: 1) There certain things you just can’t do effectively in simulated trading, e.g. trading option strategies, 2) It’s easier to be disciplined when you’re not trading real money, e.g. I’ll honor my stops rigidly whereas there can be a tendency to be more sloppy with real money … I’ll give it just a little more room … oops, and 3) It’s not as satisfying as trading real money. And so we keep at it.

Good luck, Antioch6, in your trading endeavors. I’m right there with you.

[antioch6]

I like simulated trading because I trade the same as a real money account. With testing Jesse Livermore strategies in a simulated account, I day traded the s&p futures just the same as I did in my live money and in about 1 month I was able to bring the $200,000 simulated account down to $148,000. All the time I was being very careful and trying very hard. There is something unhealthy about the way Livermore traded, and I now doubt he was great or he made all the money people said he did. I think he was just a story that lied to get people into trading. So I am officially declaring that you can't make money trading like Livermore, and I now know no one who has made money trading off technical analysis. The best I could do with my full effort was breakeven, which isn't good enough. So if technical analysis doesn't work, then fundamental analysis must work.

I know some people here are going to say it depends how you use technical analysis and it's helpful, but I'm saying you can tell sometimes when an investment might work, and when used with other data you can sometimes guess where a bottom is or how high a price will go, but that's all sales. You are planning on buying something from someone low and planning on selling it to someone else at a high. That's all about outsmarting other people and you are continuously looking for the new pattern to sell. That works, but I don't think that's what everyone should be doing, trying to sell something to each other just to own paper and gold.

I want something from the market that will give me pleasure and leave me content. I like MrMarket's strategy because it is a formula and it has been active since the 1990s. I just can't do the long research that takes hours to make a top 5. I always dreamed of picking stocks using a stock screener. I just want it to be perfect.

So Karel had a thread a while ago called his Marketocracy portfolio. I was always waiting around for updates, but for some reason he never did. Now that Karel is gone, maybe I can take his place in running his Marketocracy portfolio. I notice the major downfall of his strategy was not sitting out of the 2008 crash, not because the losses were too great to recover, but because he lost his motivation.

Lastly, I want to make a statement without offending Bluewolf as someone who actively times the market. I think He can outsmart the news and the momentum short term. He follows the story and he makes sense of it based on what's happened in the past. But I think for the most people you can't time the market, and you can't make money trading short term. The reason is obvious to me now, from my time day trading s&p futures. There is not enough profit for everyone when you get down to the smallest time frames. At the smallest level, it is just someone buying something and someone selling, and the price is just a small change from the last buy or sell. In between these two trades is where everyone trading short term is trying to make money, on the change between one price and the next price, and it just isn't large enough to meet most traders expectations. But maybe there is a fun way to trade and enjoy the stock market over decades and 20 years to come, like the way MrMarket enjoys the stock market.