Ray what you're doing is like picking up pennies in front of a bulldozer.

Stock prices fluctuate, so you just keep buying at low(er) range and selling at their high(er) range. Easy, right? Until one day the stock crashes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taleb_distribution

"In economics and finance, a Taleb distribution is a returns profile that appears at times deceptively low-risk with steady returns, but experiences periodically catastrophic drawdowns. ... The term is meant to refer to an investment returns profile in which there is a high probability of a small gain, and a small probability of a very large loss, which more than outweighs the gains."

Have you actually researched anything about the Russell 2000 besides the name? Do you know its return from the previous 12 months? Answer: about -11%. The two-year return is slightly better: -6%.

That's... ambitious. Do you think you have a large enough sample from one month to come to that conclusion? The best investors in the world are lucky to get an average yearly return of 30%, and that's ridiculously high for most people (look up Peter Lynch or Warren Buffett).

If you decide to stick with this, I wish you luck. But I hope that you take the time to study up on stocks, the markets, company financials, and other fundamentals.

Nice link -- I'm a fan of Taleb's books, that's a nice summary of some of his critical ideas.

@NightGizmo I think 60% is very ambitious, but that's my goal. My goal track record on here hasn't been too good, so we'll see.

Btw, @TsWpoker1 suggested some quality Solar stocks, and one caught my eye in particular. That is, Solar City, only because Elon Musk is Chairman of Solar City, same guy who is co-founder of PayPal and CEOS of SpaceX and Tesla. The dude is a legend w way in front ideas.
This brings me full circle to a big investment I made w Tesla today. I'm hoping the hype from the Model 3 debuting tonight gives me a decent profit in the short term. Long year I think I'm def gd w this stock, but in the short term not too sure.
The model 3 is suppose to b a game changer and after seeing the ridiculous lines forming today to preorder, and wanted in.
$18k (half a Tesla model 3) worth of stock. Please let me see that morning spike tomorrow!
Btw, u can watch the live unveil in 5 mins (8:30pacific) at Teslamotor.com.
Shd b pretty gnarly

It really concerns me that you don't seem to know a lot of the basics of investing but is making huge bets (relative to your bankroll) on individual stocks.

In the case of TSLA it's a typical buy on the rumor, sell on the news-type situation. Twenty years ago one of the stocks I used to trade was Pixar. The stock would always have a nice run up and then it would pop immediately after the release of a new Pixar movie. Keep in mind that every one of the early Pixar movies was a record-smashing worldwide hit. But the stock would always drop upon the movie's release.

I see that TSLA is up 2 in afterhours trading. I really hope it goes up (the Model 3 looks great) but that's generally not how it goes.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjon.../#5909c71c23a0

And to target a 60% gain for your first year is entirely unrealistic (with no leverage or margin!!) UNLESS you're just gambling, not trading/investing. Which goes back to the pennies and bulldozer thing again.

I'm honestly curious as to why the tesla stock wouldn't increase after the hype? I mean this car is a game changer and people are literally camping out for 2+ days to reserve them. Shouldn't those point to good signs for the stock to jump after the unveil?

Hey Morning Spike, how u doin?

Curious, are u buying options of TSLA or just straight up stocks? If just stocks thats only 75 shares ur buying, ur barely making anything if it goes up 5 bucks.

^
$18k worth of Tesla stock @233 yesterday, and will prob end up smwhere between +$500 - +$1k today on it. Currently +724
U r correct in small gains and losses in the short term on these large caps. This is why I like trading small cap and penny stocks where you can push the edges more and see bigger returns (or losses) on ur investments.
Not sure if Tesla will b a "sell" eventually or a "hold". But I do know one thing, that is, I plan on backing the truck up on this stock a few days before part 2 of the unveil happens next year. Part 2 is suppose to b on a whole other level. This will create more hype, and will prob sell off the next day when it spikes.

Did anyone watch the part 1 live stream last night?
115,000 preorders in 24hrs on a car that no one has seen is insane. pretty brilliant kick starter campaign.

I hope they put more money into charging stations. I have seen a couple Teslas in Cinci, but I don't recall hearing about or seeing any charging stations here. It, seems to me that until those are as common as gas stations(or reasonably close) and the price comes down a lot and the batteries are much smaller, and charge lasts longer, I would be hesitant to have too much money invested in this company. I'm no expert on the market, but I try to stay informed.

Edit..I found four charging stations in Cincinnati, and two in Blue Ash(northern suburb) and one of those is the Tesla dealer. They have nice looking cars, have to admit that.

There is a charging station off of bardstown road over by sullivan in the big empty parking lot. Only one in Louisville as far as I know.

Fast speed charging stations will more than double by the end of next year and slow speed charging stations will quadruple by the end of next year.

Here's a little info/.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...up-to-the-hype

Also, I'm not even sure if I'm a fan of the car or not, but Ima fan of making money.
Just looking for spots in the stock game.

Glad to see that Ray is in the money on his TSLA purchase.

But like I mentioned "buy on rumor, sell on news" - TSLA was at a low of 143 mid-February and climbed all the way up to 229 in less than two months on the belief that the Model 3 will be a game changer. Most of the 'hype' was already built into the stock price before the actual unveil.

That makes sense, thanks for the insight. Traditionally, do stocks not go up though after good news is released (earnings reports, press conferences, etc.)? So if you are assuming for good news to come, shouldn't you expect to see a spike the next morning at least?

So you didn't sell when it spiked! Why not?

It's difficult or impossible to predict. As 1800rpm mentioned, the price for something like this is often already baked into the price, since the market has known that this announcement was coming for a while. So any price spike or drop after the actual announcement isn't really based on any change in the intrinsic value of the stock, it's just based on the psychology of the market towards the stock at that time.

For TSLA, maybe the spike happened because the increased press coverage and exposure attracted more buyers (like Ray). But for a stock like TSLA, which has a lot of debt, massive investment in R&D, and runs at a loss, it's all just speculation at best, a gamble at worst.

Gd question. Since I'm new to this, I found out few weeks ago that when u buy a stock u have to own it for 3 days before u can sell it.
Newbie question...Is this standard policy everywhere?
I cd hv sold off at the spike, but I wd hv recieved a violation. I already hv 3 violations for selling before my stocks has settled (3 days), and my 5th violation results in 90 day acct freeze on OptionsHouse.
I still almost sold, and took a 4thviolation, but didn't. Gonna wait and see.

Before part 2 of the unveil I'm gonna make sure I buy 3 days before, and b able to sell on the next day's spike.

Yup. Smart/professional traders trade ahead of the market movement. If you wait till AFTER whatever event that is expected to impact the stock price, you run the risk of bad news (eg. if the Model 3 launch was disappointing). Those who bought TSLA in the past month during its run up to the launch and sold before the unveil made up to 60% gain without the risk of a big swing either way once the news is announced. As I mentioned, buy on rumor sell on news.

Just like in poker, you want to minimize variance when possible.

No you don't have to keep a stock for 3 days!! That's crazy, traders buy and sell the same stock(s) multiple times in a single day all the time.

I believe this is your violation (from http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/...T-3-Timeline):

Each time a stock trade is completed in a cash account, those funds will not settle for a full three trading days. Since a trade held less than three days in a cash account requires settled funds to avoid a good-faith violation, it may become necessary to wait at least three days between trades so that the day trades or short-term trades can be done using settled funds only.

ie. you need to make sure a previous stock sale has settled if you're using those funds to make a new purchase.

@1800rpm thanks for clearing that up. I hated that I thought I cdnt buy and sell the same day or next day, so this is gd news.
I hv recieved 3 Gd Faith Cash Violations, and was a little confused on that.
This is will make a big difference for my stock game. Thank u for helping me
#newbie

Hopefully you make out good in 2016 so the inevitable short term capital gains tax doesn't hurt so much.

ray, if you have a margin account you dont have to wait 3 days for the funds to settle to put that money back to work. they will flag you for daytrading thou if you buy and sell a stock in the same day and dont have a minimum of over 25,000 in your account.

Trade for free, may be worth looking into https://www.robinhood.com/

It's backed by some of the very top VCs (including Google) so it's legit.

Yeah I asked Optionshouse about margin acct a couple weeks ago to try to get around this 3 day wait period. They said w a margin acct that I wd still hv to wait 3 days for stocks to settle if purchasing a stock w the funds of a sold stock prior to 3 days. They explained the different w w margin is I can go ahead and hv the cash readily available when selling, but i still cd get flagged for violations for buying if haven't settled.
Are u saying having a 25k min allows me to buy and sell same day no restrictions?

It looks legit. May hv to cross over to this after my 60 days of free trading expire.
A site where I cd trade for free wd save few thousand a year!