Looking to invest $10,000 in stocks.

[guru1000]

Book value is a great fundamental indicator but has little to do with technical short-term trading range. For long-term investments a/k/a fundamental investing, taking into consideration the book value, P/E & P/B ratio, ROE, EPS, profit margin, cash flow, growth rate, NPV, discount factor, capitalization rate, company's market reach within its sector, management, competition, and market cap, inter alia, will deliver you average returns of 7-12% per annum. To reach returns greater than the norm, you have to think outside the box and dig deeper. Remember, Buffet is playing with billions; he's not striving for double-digit annual returns.

 

[Bible_Belt]

I remember when the price of Enron was in its death spiral downward, every week there would be a new analyst on CNBC praising it for being such a great value. Then it would drop more, and they would say "now it's an even better value!"

 

[guru1000]

Apple traded above 129 today. I sold the Apple calls today, one day later, @ 5.45, roughly a 47% return in 24 hours.

Going forward, I will not touch Apple again until either of the following occurs:

• It establishes a new support and resistance level above the 135+ price, of which I will buy calls @ SP 130
  
• It trades back down to 125 of which I will buy calls @ SP 125 again.

 

[guru1000]

Apple traded below 126 today. Bought July 2 (25 days to exp.) SP 125 Calls @ $3.40.

Will sell when Apple trades close to 130.

 

[guru1000]

Apple traded above 129 today. Sold the July 2 SP 125 Calls @ $5. Another 47% return.

Again, the following must occur before I get involved:

• It establishes a new support and resistance level above the 135+ price, of which I will buy calls @ SP 130
  
• It trades back down to 125 of which I will buy calls @ SP 125 again.

Following my next trade, I will open a new thread specifically for Apple naked call and put trading. If anyone has any trading experience with iron condors/butterflys, feel free to PM me for trading strategy swaps.

 

[guru1000]

Apple traded below 126 today. Bought July 4 (25 days to exp.) SP 125 Calls @ $3.16.

Will sell when Apple trades close to 130.

 

[guru1000]

Apple traded down below 124 today. I didn't sell my position yet. Instead, I cost-averaged down to $2.72 by increasing the call position by 200% at a buy @ $2.5 today.

Will sell once the call reaches $3.5+.

To all PMs: Sorry for not responding. Will do once time frees up.

 

[prison/con.net]

why sell if it's not on a downturn? RIDE man, as long as its going up, or at least, has not turned -downwards in price! Just set a stop-loss sell order at 10% current price and enjoy the ride

 

[guru1000]

Apple traded below 121 today. I executed a rolling swap, which is selling the near-to-expiration call option at a loss, and purchasing the same strike price, same amount of contracts at a further out-to-expiration call.

Swapped the 15-day expiration for the 36-day. This allows the advantage of time, in case Apple is shaken up the next two weeks over the China "crisis"--which is complete BS btw. Efficient traders understand the difference between a real crisis and temporal "machinations."

Prison: I don't sell naked long options unless swapping or for profit. I let them expire worthless if need be. I have a 85/15 win to loss ratio, with 85% wins averaging over 50% in profits, and 15% losses averaging at 100% in losses. I "lot" trade, which means equal dollar amounts each trade, with 1-2% of portfolio comprising these naked call buys. Remaining derivative portfolio spread among iron condors, straddles, and butterflies.

 

[prison/con.net]

I never said anything about options. I'm talking about actually owning the stock.

 

[guru1000]

Sold swapped call today @ $4.55; a 60% profit overall, inclusive of swap loss. Quarterly earning report comes next Tuesday. I will await the earnings report before further transacting.

I will open a new thread with next trade.

 

[Wen]

Sold swapped call today @ $4.55; a 60% profit overall, inclusive of swap loss. Quarterly earning report comes next Tuesday. I will await the earnings report before further transacting.

I will open a new thread with next trade.

nice glad you make money on it. I had been wanting to get back to options lately and trade VXX or VIX options, but missing out for the monent.

EDIT:
can you link the thread once you starts it? along with the strike price, premium paid, and expiration date to make it clearer.

thanks.

 

[Georgey500]

Hello Georgey500,

I am an XGLOBAL Markets representative and I can confirm that our firm does offer pure ECN/STP execution (Market Execution in MT4).

Since this thread discusses stocks I want to mention that primarily we offer trading on FX and Precious Metals. On request we also offer CFDs on indices and commodities.

If you have any questions please let me know I would be happy to answer them.

Best regards,
Daniel Rees - XGLOBAL Markets official representative

Thanks Dan, good to see that you guys are active.

Cost per contract/lot?

Hi guru1000, have you tried them yet? any feedback?

 

[Georgey500]

nope? no user feedback on xglobal markets?

 

[IASGame]

Buy and hold, index funds / ETFs

Summary:
If you are in the U.S., open an account on a cheap broker without ongoing fees such as Charles Schwab or TD Ameritrade (IB pricing is better for active traders) and invest [your age in years]% in BND and the remaining % in VTI

Without insider info or manipulating the market - both of which are regulated but that can't possibly stop it from happening - I don't think anyone can do market timing and the more you try to do it the more you go against the statistical eventuality that you will average into the market (or most likely, below the market due to trading fees or worse by letting your psychological flaws induce you into making irrational mistakes).

Apparently all the research specific stocks done by people with know-how to know what PER means and such stuff (managers of mutual funds) end up under-performing the market on average (long-term), because of the fees they charge the clients for the service.

Therefore I would suggest long term investment (for retirement, 10 years or more hopefully) based on buying and holding a selection of index funds or ETFs.
I personally go with ETFs although index funds have can have some advantages in terms of dividends if I recall.

Vanguard has some very low expense ratio ETFs which cover the U.S. market, either based on the S&P 500 or the total market (the difference isn't big due to the large capitalization): VTI

Eventually you should also not just put all your money into equities so I've increasingly considering bonds: BND.

An often used template is your age % in bonds (in my suggestion, BND) and the rest in equities (in my suggestion, VTI). You should rebalance as you age, which also is a strategy that will mean you are somewhat forced to buy more VTI when it is low and sell a bit of VTI to buy BND when equities are high.

You won't go wrong with that, it doesn't require you to do much research and on average long-term over-performs the experts that allegedly should know what they are doing.

There are other quick "portfolio" templates which diversify, and if you know a bit more what you are doing (as I think I do but probably don't) you can invest in sectors. I am a scientist so I have a strong belief in technology driving the economy, so I allocated a chunk of my portfolio to dedicated Biotech and to IT ETFs (IBB, QQQ are two examples).