Trading living from active trading?

Excellent post Guys. I am looking at alternative income sources and this is a bit of fun along the way. Joanmc and Hiflo - would you be willing to share some of the shares you are trading. I'd love to have a look and see the movement

 

Hi Island girl, atm I am trading GPT, MGX and RIO mostly. I have been doing a lot with GPT in lots of 100 000 and looking for 1 or 2 cents move. seeing it trades in the tens of millions each day and sometimes even over 100 mill, this has been a good one for me so far.
Joan

disclaimer: do your own research, this is not advice I am only saying what I am doing blah, blah, not an expert etc etc

 

Thank you! Not everyone is willing to share info. I just wanted to watch a few for a while and see what happens with them. When I want to jump in fully I'll start doing my own research. But for now this helps. Thanks

 

^^ i like this...

...i learnt 100000% more through actual trading and analysing actual stocks i was going to purchase with REAL money than anything i learnt in any text books

props to all giving it a go!!

 

I second this.

I have to agree as well.

I am learning quite a lot more actually buying and selling shares and am learning as I go. Since I won't be trading until July 2009, I decided to buy a parcel of STW with my $2,500. I will look into trading once I set up an account with Bell Direct. They have the cheapest brokerage and with my small parcel of shares, it's worth the hassle. Until now I have been using Netwealth where they charged $17.99 per execution. But Bell is charging $15.00 per execution. This will save me $6.00 when I sell and buy. Until and unless I can execute more than $10,000 per trade I will not consider using a margin loan, and thus, the simplest form of transaction with the least amount of fees suits me best.

One of the reasons for buying STW was because the ex-dividend date is coming up and their distribution will take place a couple of weeks later. I intend to sell once my new account is set up with Bell Direct provided that I don't make a LOSS. From this experience I may take ex-dividend dates into consideration in the future. It all depends what kind of experience I get from it.

NEVER LOSE should be the ultimate goal of an investor and I am feeling a lot of this after I lost almost 30% of my portfolio by value, even though my last purchase of shares/managed funds were one year before the actual peak. I thought never selling was the way to go because in the long run the shares go up- this was the conclusion at which I arrived after reading so much before jumping to by the shares and managed funds. But experience gives you the details to the general conclusion you arrive at after reading.

I hope STW will reach $40.50 mark in July so that I can sell.

Anyway, I will hold on to it until it reaches $40.50.

I also hope that other traders share their experiences too.

 

Hello to everyone here,

I have really enjoyed reading this thread and now it is time to share my story.

Firstly I would like to say that despite everything I've been through over the last two years, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

In the beginning I studied the market for approx: two years, along with reading, instructional material & paper trading etc.

My baptism of fire August-14-2007, my very first trade.
Check price chart for PRR - Prima Biomed Ltd
On or around this date and you will see it rose by approx: 280% in TWO days and within the next 2 days fell almost back to where it started.

The short Version:
I was looking at the equivalent of 3 months income (in 2 days)
Compared to my day job,
I had filled out my sell order and was about to hit enter when my internet connection dropped out, Needless to say I pretty much freaked out,
There was nothing in all my studies that had prepared me for this.
It took me about 4 and half minutes to log in again by which time I had lost all my profits and was staring down a loss of some $8000.oo

Many of you simply won't believe this to be possible, well I'm not trying to impress anyone and if anyone is interested to hear how this came about I would like to share, I have told no-one of this folly, not even my wife.

Now I feel I must balance out this tale with some good fortune so as not to scare away some of you readers who might be feeling a little queasy right about now.

I direct your attention to:
ERJ - Enerji Ltd
Again look at a price chart for this company

I had a sizable investment in this company and on Friday afternoon I took a very large profit, this one investment alone brought me back from impending bankruptcy to live and fight another day.

I have many such tales to tell, and even though I currently have my house up for sale I cannot say I regret becoming a trader and with a little luck I hope to trade my way out of this dilemma.

Just like you said earlier Joanmc
I just love, I thrive on it, I feel more alive now than can ever remember.

 

thanks for sharing missbhaven
wow that must have really got your heart going!

years ago I bought 1000 shares in a company called sausage software (SAS) for 33 cents each, it sat and sat then wonder of wonders the dot com boom hit and it went up, up ,up to $8.40 then the dot com bubble went POP and it went down, down, down to 15 cents

moral of the story set your profit and TAKE it

But then on Thursday this week I bought 50000 mgx @$1.03, put in a sell for 1.135 as I was not going to be trading for a week so I went for a higher return.... I was at the trading expo on Friday (in Brissie) and while filling out a form at a stand I asked if they could just check the opening price for me.... $1.17!!!!!!!!$6879 clear profit we went out for a GREAT lunch after that

It is days like those that make the yuckky ones worth it.

 

Hi all
I am very new to all this. I have been considering investing in the share market but have been sketchy as i dont know where to start. After reading through this thread i feel inspired to dip my toes in the pool!

I am just wondering if anyone would like to share their preferences or pros & cons in regards to which broker you use to do your trading? e.g westpac online broker (as joanmc mentioned) and Bell direct (also previously mentioned)

Any help would be mostly appreciated!

Andrew

 

Hi Andrew
I only use Westpac because that is who most of my banking is with and it made it easier to move the money back and forth. That being said I am looking at some of the cheaper brokers to lessen my costs as I trade very frequently and it does start to add up! Bell looks good, anyone else have any suggestions??

 

from what i can see, bell seems to be the cheapest

 

When I looked into Bell it's 0.15% of the trade or $15.00 per trade whichever is greater. However, this only applies to cash trading, not linked to any other account.

Netwealth is $17.99 per trade upto $5000k and $19.99 per trade upto $10000. This is only applies to cash trading and you have to pay something like $25 per trade if you want to link it to your margin loan account.

 

Here is a lesson to all about paying attention and not trading when you are over tired and cranky!...or been having a little tipple.

Guess who forgot to check anouncements and bought RIO on 16-June?

In my defence it was my birthday and I had been out for a VERY nice lunch.

Upside is I qualified for the rights issue so we will see. I haven't decided whether to sell the rights or take them up yet.hmmmm......

 

When the market is going down what do you do if you are a trader?

As I tend to sell after 1-4 days of purchase, I generally wait until I think a certain share has hit the bottem and not buy anything until I see signs of slight recovery.

If you are trading in-tra day, how do you trade?

 

Thats very unlucky Joanmc! Happy birthday for the other day!
Would anybody care to list some of their day-trading strategies for entering and exiting the share market?
ive been reading up on these strategies and just curious to see what works for you!

 

Would anybody care to list some of their day-trading strategies for entering and exiting the share market?

Buying low and selling high based on 2~5 min chart and market depth (if dealing with shares).


When the market is going down what do you do if you are a trader?

Selling and/or selling short.
Some traders become investors if they don’t sell at a right time.

 

How do your trading methods compare to COLUMNS WORKSHOPS MASTER CLASS BOOKINGS the ‘day trader’ Share Trading Workshops ‘learn to trade profitably for yourself’ . It looks like Morley only checks prices after market close around 8pm. Is his method, which specifies selection criterior and tight stops, and 2 days training a worthwhile purchase at $995?

 

There is nothing I can say about his system/style as I know nothing about it.
His site says nothing at all unless one pays for his workshop. It may be just another advertisement gimmick (IMHO).
There is a lot of ‘gurus’ is this business claiming all sort of achievements....
As I said before...personally I would only deal with pro traders who are trading for a living for at least 10~15 years with a proven track record.

I would suggest that the best way to start, is to get couple of books about trading and read them carefully...

 

HOME COLUMNS WORKSHOPS MASTER CLASS BOOKINGS background

yep, he's been trading for 9 years...

 

thanks Besharti! It was a good one.

Hi hiflo I am with tropo here... shorting ( we are using CFDs now) when the market is going down, but definitely looking at market depth / volume. I find that because I am trading lots of 1000 or more then volume is very important. It is pointless if the share moves the amount you want but it takes 3 days and 3 lots of brokerage to offload. I don't bother with anything that doesn't trade at LEAST over 100 000 shares in a day, unless it is a speculative thing that I am looking to keep for a while.

voigstr, I would only wonder if he is so successful at trading why does he need to sell his product? I am a bit guru'd out though at the moment. I have gone to sooo many seminars etc on wealth etc that they all start to sound a bit the same and I am disallusioned with most. you can learn everything you need to know about becoming wealthy from books and experience and getting of your butt and having a go IMHO.

We were already nearly free when we decided we could afford to pay others for advice (other than our accountant) and while some speakers have given us ideas that have fine tuned our strategies I would have to say that we learned the most from having a go and risking some of our dollars. nothing makes you remember a lesson more than it costing you some of your hard earned cash