Beginner Day Trading - Robinhood App

[dr.harker]

A buddy started trading with Robinhood. I put a couple hundred bucks in and have been doing small trades.

What are some forums, websites or good resources for e-trading/day trading beginners. Perhaps advice on good buy stocks.

 

[Stoic]

A buddy started trading with Robinhood. I put a couple hundred bucks in and have been doing small trades.

What are some forums, websites or good resources for e-trading/day trading beginners. Perhaps advice on good buy stocks.

Not what you asked but...

My advice to you would be to not day trade.

I remember reading 87% of day traders lose money. And of course drop out of day trading completely after that.

Do you personally know any wealthy day traders in your peer group? Do you know anyone personally that has done day trading for the long term, 5 years or more?

My suggestion is to do something more steady and consistent. Invest in index funds and hold for a long time. Very simple. But be a little patient.

Not bragging but an anecdote. I started investing in index funds steadily from each pay check in my mid 20s. I'm 37 now and I recently surpassed $1M in net worth. Lost half in recent divorce, but that is another story.

Check out bogleheads.org. build your wealth steadily.

Best of luck.

 

[synergy1]

Not what you asked but...

My advice to you would be to not day trade.

I remember reading 87% of day traders lose money. And of course drop out of day trading completely after that.

Do you personally know any wealthy day traders in your peer group? Do you know anyone personally that has done day trading for the long term, 5 years or more?

My suggestion is to do something more steady and consistent. Invest in index funds and hold for a long time. Very simple. But be a little patient.

Not bragging but an anecdote. I started investing in index funds steadily from each pay check in my mid 20s. I'm 37 now and I recently surpassed $1M in net worth. Lost half in recent divorce, but that is another story.

Check out bogleheads.org. build your wealth steadily.

Best of luck.

seconded. I have been studying and doing this for a while, and am still (overall) down on investing. It has only been around until late feb where my record has positive and will take a while longer. All the newbies think they can jump in after a massive run and go long options to make money fast.

The day traders in the groups I am in don't seem to have a system. Buying calls works great until it doesn't.

 

[Zontyy]

Your not really day trading unless you have 25k in your account. Also TD Ameritrade is better imo but they got bought out by schwab so who knows how long they will keep there trading platform. I'm just like you though I started trading in march and so far I am up 52.5% in my gains. Some positions are 253% higher then what I paid into them. I don't do calls or puts yet at this is sure way for a new investor to lose money. If you must do covered calls only.

Also setup at stop losses on stocks you worry about. Setup a text alert too to VIX also known as the fear index. Usually when VIX hits 30 or above you see drops in the stock market. If you have a gut feeling the markets about to drop hard out and VIX is higher then 30 then sell all your positions and by back in when they market is close to bottoming out as its to hard to plan the bottom better to catch the falling knife. If you gut feeling is the market is fine, then have iron hands hold your bags the VIX will go down you will be fine.

Right now the VIX is at 34 which has me a little bit edgy if we had a second corona shutdown along with jerome telling people the fed will stop printing money stocks would plummet. I have a gut feeling though there won't be no 2nd wave shutdown, america is here to stay open. I just don't know how jerome feels if you knew what the fed was planning to do you could make millions.

 

[Lookatu]

All the beginning Robinhood newbies are what's killing the traditional investment trends within the last few months. I blame the newbies on the Nikola surge and also the Hertz surge that happened recently purely based on emotions and speculations as well as reading dumb articles from dumb people. Anyone can have youtube channel or website these days regardless of their credentials.

My advice is to get TD Ameritrade instead. It is way more robust and also offers free trades. If you get more skilled, you can also do margins and such so it definitely will grow with you.

Learn to do some research on actual numbers and future forecasting. Treat it like you are playing with a bunch of skilled Black Jack guys at a table. If you are good at black jack at the casinos, then you should know that all the players are playing collectively against the house and not individually.

Always follow any news 24/7 and anticipate using common sense. For example, with the reopening, you see several businesses using plexiglass dividers. Well, one can assume that any public traded plastic composite companies are going to have a few good quarters so that might've been one are to look into.

You also have to determine if you want a quick buck or how long you want to stay in. If for the long haul, look at companies you can afford where they have high dividends for example.

There is no magical formula unfortunately and even the best investors have fallen at some point. If day trading or short term trading, just treat it like going to Vegas and expect to lose some and win some. But do not quit your job over this. My cousin has done this and I didn't think it was a good move on his part.

My $.02

 

[synergy1]

All the beginning Robinhood newbies are what's killing the traditional investment trends within the last few months. I blame the newbies on the Nikola surge and also the Hertz surge that happened recently purely based on emotions and speculations as well as reading dumb articles from dumb people. Anyone can have youtube channel or website these days regardless of their credentials.

Right, there is a lot of that among newer retail investors. In one of the groups I am in, they suggest the best way to learn options is on youtube. Some of them understand greeks ,but not many. The people I associate with believe this is too academic.

The problem with their call option strategy is that there is no risk control. Some of them are doing well randomly guessing to buy airline , or cruise calls...but if there are a series of down days like there was earlier this year, their habit of cost averaging is going to wipe out their accounts. Most of them buy the dips and do ok, and this works with strong markets such as this.

One of the harest things one can do is watch their friends get rich. This is what is calling newbies to day trading, especially after a huge run up. But as what always happens late cycle, especially in early 2000, the newbies go too hard and get wiped out. I don't know when this cycle will break in earnest, but when it does, its going to crush a lot of these newbies who own derivatives in my opinion

 

[Bible_Belt]

I was a pro trader many years ago with over a million bucks of other people's money to throw around. Before that, I was a broker who set up traders to trade. We had a $25k minimum account, and you had to prove that you could lose all that money without it affecting your lifestyle. It is the nasd suitability rule. That rule is obviously being violated like crazy these days.

A dirty little secret about these "free" and low commission trades, nothing in life is free. They are taking a spread on your order. You buy higher than the market price and sell lower than market. The margin is small, but it adds up tremendously over time. Furthermore, when things are really moving against you, your order will just sit there. When the market first tanked, the robin hood app went down entirely. You think that is by accident? If they can't make money off your order, you don't get traded.

Trading off apps is just laziness. You need a real computer, reliable internet, and a platform that lets you send orders directly. Interactivebrokers dot com gets good reviews, but that is just an order entry platform, you still need to buy a data feed. If all that sounds like too much work, you shouldn't be trading.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Elite trader dot com and silicon investor dot com are two forums to check out.

 

[Means1988]

I do day trading, but it’s not my profession/career.

Forget emotions. People lose due to their emotions. They feel, they feel lucky, they feel like ****, they feel smart, they feel like they will get their money back, and after losing they can’t tell anybody due to being embarrassed.

Trading is solely of %. If you go into trading to make big gains like $20,000 a day, as you may have seen others do, well you need a million you’re willing to lose.

What I mean by % is this. If you invest $20 and get gains of 20%. That’s $4. I know you do not want to collect $4. But the reality is you have to... because if you put $200, that would be $40, and if you put $2,000 that would be $400, and if you did $20,000 it would be $4,000, and if you had the big boy money you would have put $200,000 and made $40,000.


If a person already has $200,000 for trading, that person already makes a lot of money and won’t even bother with it since they do more of long term investing. Why do I say 20%.

Based on any stock, check out AAL this week and last week, up and down $1-$2. But you must take that 20% gain. So let’s say you started off with $1000. You got to only 10%, take your $100, everyday. That’s $500. At the end of the month you have $2,000 and that initial $1,000, so you’re at $3,000... and I’m talking about pathetic 10% gain that you bought any stock at its best support line.
After a month, of you were taking 10% a day on $3,000, that’s $300/day, $1500/week... in 2 months you should be at $9,000.... if you stick to these principles of finding stocks at their best support lines, and taking out your 10-20% daily, soon enough 20k, needs to go up on 5% to make a $1,000 today.
So learn how to find strong support lines, and resistance lines. Observe stocks typically behavior from previous charts, but most importantly take your gains even at small amounts... they add up. If something happens and they start going down take you 20% loss as well. By knowing the support lines this is how you minimize losses.

If you’re talking about options, I would not suggest learning them. They were made for hedging, and only few people either get lucky, or they truly know what to do, which is chart patterns and buying in the money, just to resale right away for a quick 40-100% gain.

So to start, learn what support lines are. Find a great scanner where stocks dropped hugely or gained, because they will make another move just not as drastic as first. Collect your gains daily, control your emotions of being rich over night. I experienced it.. if I would’ve held for another day I would’ve made like $50,000 instead of $3,000... it used to haunt me.. it’s easy to say “I’m not greedy I’m ok it’s just money” then actually do it.

 

[Lookatu]

The real winner in all of this is the government. They always get their cut of ~15-25% depending on how long you hold your stocks for.

 

[Zontyy]

Everyone post your positions so far I'm only up 50% but it's nice to be in the green little bit more down since my last post. I've got some losers rights now like Denny's but I believe they will come back once covid dies down. My biggest gainer was a penny stock that I am kicking myself for not dumping more I bought it on a whim because i have some dividend change. I'm kind of all over the place with my positions usually bought on payday which whatever stock looked the best that day. I'm still young so I plan to hold a very long time. I might sell some of my stocks if they hit some all time highs or close to it and just buy back when they dump again. I want to look into some day trading x3 leverage stocks with semiconductors but I just don't have the capital yet to do that. Slowly I'll build this up, I have regular retirement accounts this is just my play money.

 

[Scars]

I have over $30,000 in the Robinhood app. I don't day trade though. I just pick blue chip stocks and collect the dividends every month or quarterly and then reinvest them into more stocks. It's a great app, good for beginners/millennials. I want to have at least a million dollar portfolio by the time I'm 50. The dividends are basically going to be my "retirement".