I can’t really express to everyone how important it is to have a list of stocks with their buy/sell prices. This week things have been very hectic for me, yet I was able to grab my little notebook and see that one of my stocks hit the buy point. I know it’s very low tech, but nothing beats a small notebook. It’s quick, fast and user friendly. Don’t get me wrong, I love my iPhone 4, but it’s still not going to replace my notebook.
Action time: buy a small notebook to keep with you. Keep a list of stocks you want to buy with their buy and sell prices.
On my other website (www.littlebuddhaproject.com), I had a week long discussion about charities and the value of giving. I know that this seems to be an odd subject for an investing site, but there is some value for investors too. I’m not talking about just tax right offs.
Let’s be honest, if we don’t have a purpose, it’s difficult to stick with something that can be frustrating (like the stock market). If you find that you are losing purpose for having a portfolio (except money), try trading stocks to give a portion to charity. Pick a good round number and once you profit, donate! I would suggest starting with 20% of the profits.
Giving can be a very rewarding endeavor.
Do you think I’ve lost it? Do you give to charity? Let me know in the comments. Happy trading!
I’ve discussed before that you shouldn’t panic on outrageous headlines. Because people do, you can take advantage of this. Bad news could be a good time to add to your portfolio. Do your homework and be sure that the bad news in only temporary. Buy the stock as it recovers from the downward surge. You don’t need hit the exact bottom; in fact it is better to buy when you see the stock recover.
Bad news isn’t always bad news for your portfolio. Happy Trading!
I’ve been known to only read the headlines of articles only to find out later that it wasn’t exactly true. Don’t make investing decisions on just the headlines alone. Understand the news before you make any buy or sell decisions. The good news in this, people do make quick decisions on just headlines. By understanding the news, good or bad, could help you profit while other people are panicking.
Sorry for the lack of update. I needed to take a break, which I recommend to everyone. It’s time to get back to trading stocks. I’m excited about working on this blog again. Join me and let’s explore making ourselves wealthy with the stock market!
As always, I seem to learn a lesson by losing money. In this case, I was prepared for a trend to break downward. What I wasn’t looking for was a trend to break upward. My new rule, once a trend is broken, UP or DOWN, sell.
JOEZ was set nicely for a good upward trend. I was excited about the chart and the upward movement it was making. I bought it at just the right time (at the bottom of it’s trending cycle). It did everything I expected. Then one day, bang, it jumped 15%. 15%! Yes, what I should have done was sell it. The trend was broken. Unfortunately, I was only tracking a trend that broke it’s trend downward. The next day, bang, 15% loss. I went from a $200 profit to a $6 loss. Of course, my trailing stop loss kicked in and sold.
Moral of the story:
When a trend is broken (up or down), it’s time to sell.
I’ve had a few days with my iPad and I can honestly say this has potential to be a big technology changer for everyone. This also includes investors. The new mobile society has become even more capable with this device.
What does the iPad have in store for Lunch Break Investors? Here are a few of my thoughts on how this will change it all:
1. Full web browser. No more squinting at the mobile version of our favorite financial site. I was able to log into my Scottrade account and view charts, financial data and news. Just like on my laptop. The only drawback I’ve had so far is that I can’t use the drawing tool on the stock chart. So, I’m still not at the point that I can completely know if a stock is trending.
2. The every growing awesome apps. The Apple app store has enough financial apps that should suit anyone’s strategy. I’ll start reviewing those over the next few days.
3. Numbers is the Apple version of Excel. This is an amazing application. I’m in the process of converting my stock tracking spreadsheet to it (I currently use Google Docs). Again, there is one draw back to the app, it will import Excel documents, but not export them.
4. iBooks, Knook (Barnes & Noble) and Kindle (Amazon). These are the three big boys of the ebook reader market (sorry Sony). Barnes & Noble and Kindle both run on the iPad. What does that mean for Lunch Break Investors? No more heavy books! You can now buy all your favorite books on your preferred format and read away.
5. The video player is much better on the iPad than on the iPhone/iPod touch. Now those videos from podcasts and iTunes U are much easier on the eyes. Time to upgrade your financial knowledge.
Those are my thoughts, do you have any to share. Post a comment below, I would love to hear from you!
There isn’t a strategy that will make you rich quickly in the stock market. I’ve seen the ads for making millions investing in penny stocks and the ads for how to make millions in the stock market. It just doesn’t happen.
Let’s do the math:
To make a million dollars in one week:
1. Invest enough money in stock that can be sold for a million dollar profit.
• Let’s say you have a stock that will go up 10% in one week.
• You’ll need to invest $10,000,000 to make your profit. If you have that much money, why do you need to get rich quick?
2. Invest $1,000 that grows to a million in one week.
• You would need to find that wonder stock that will grow 1,000%. To my knowledge, that doesn’t happen.
Sorry to burst the “get rich quick” bubble.
But, there is a way…
What you can do is grow your wealth using the stock market. Investing is more like growing a garden than winning the lottery (I’ll do that comparison later). Like a garden, you need to sow good seeds or in this case buy good stocks. You also need to weed out the bad stocks that bring down your portfolio.
Some ways to do this are:
1. Value investing
2. Large Cap Stocks
3. Small Cap Stocks
4. Trending
I won’t include day trading, because this is too risky. Besides, I’m a lunch break investor. I don’t have time to sit around watching the stock market. Any strategy should be easy to follow and not take up to much of your time.
I’m sitting at my favorite coffee cafe having a tea and using their free WiFi. I try to be as careful as I can when I use free Wifi. How do I know that one of the employees don’t have some high tech way of tracking my log ins and passwords? I know this sounds paranoid, but it is possible to do this.
This is why I list mobile broadband on my what you need list. If you are not using a connection you can trust, DO NOT enter user names and passwords to sensitive web sites. Someone could steal your information. You can imagine how scary it would be to log into your brokerage account only to find all your money gone.
I use Scottrade and thought at first how dumb it was that I could not make a withdrawal from their web site. I had to either call and have them snail mail me a check or sign up for the ATM/Checks. Still it seemed odd, until I started looking at how to be more secure. Now I’m thankful that if someone could break into my account that couldn’t steal all my money. What they could do is sell my stocks or buy bad stocks that will definitely lose my money. This option is no better than having my money stolen. Would someone do something that horrible. Yes, they would!
Tell me your thoughts in the comments section on what you think about security. Have a good tip? Share it!
I’ve been reading the “80/20 Principle” by Richard Koch and it has me thinking about my portfolio. Does it have a large distribution of winners versus losers?
After looking over my notes, I’ve decided that yes it does. There is a smaller portion of my portfolio that makes the most money versus the number of stocks I’ve bought/sold.
This makes for some interesting pondering. I invest in more stocks that lose money than make money. Yet, the ones that make money make up the difference plus add profits. So, this just proves that it’s not how many winners versus losers that you have, but how well the real winners do.
To wrap up this odd post. Cut your losses early, don’t buy into stocks that are losing money and invest more into the winners while they are winning.
Do you use the 80/20 Principle when you invest? Let me know in the comments.
