Online Stock Trading

Originally Posted by Omar1223

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. . . I plan to begin at about 5-7 trades a month initially and after I gain some confidence probably about 10-20 trades a month. . . .

Originally Posted by Omar1223

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i plan to buy stocks to own them. i didnt mean to use the word trading. can the websites that people have recommended also be used to research mutual funds? thanks for the input so far.
Either you have a few hundred million dollars to invest or the first point is inconsistent with the second. That is a lot of activity for someone who is buying stocks to own them. I use TD Waterhouse because they were Ameritrade which was Datek and also Vanguard, though I don't have real great reasons for sticking with Vanguard other than a little safety from diversification. TD Waterhouse is fine. I get some fees waived for various reasons but those are infrequent. I have only had one big execution screw-up and they unwound it without complaint (though I would have preferred the lost profits I would have had). Commissions are low enough. I wouldn't trust the zero commission guys though haven't investigated enough to tell you why. The dollar amounts are too small to bother with as $150 would be a heavy commission month for me. Most months are closer to $30-$50 or less (Edit: I just checked - since January, I have paid $100 in commissions, all of which was in the last two weeks).

Originally Posted by iammatt

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Don't do this. I have never seen an amateur trade successfully, and have seen many blow up their savings.
+1

I was one of them in 2000. Luckily, my savings weren't that much back then

Originally Posted by gdl203

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+1

I was one of them in 2000. Luckily, my savings weren't that much back then

Think of it as similar to gambling. There are few "safe" bets and never wager more than you're willing to lose. Lessons from Vegas and Scottrade...

scottrade.

Day-trading successfully is very difficult.
However investing in individual stocks for mid /long term is not. I say you would make significantly more money by going into individual investing as oppose to giving your money to Mutual *****.
Investing does not require a lot of reading or supreme sense of the market.
People who invested in UPS when it went public or Goldman Sacks or ATT or MasterCard or Visa do not posses any inside information or winning trading algorithms, they just make a lot of money using their common sense.
So can you.

Stick to indexes, unless you have substantial spare time for research. 5-7 trades/month is a lot for a casual investor, I would think.

Originally Posted by macuser3of5

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Stick to indexes, unless you have substantial spare time for research. 5-7 trades/month is a lot for a casual investor, I would think.

I love to use Proshares. Long, short, 2x long or short, many sectors, styles, etc. http://www.proshares.com/funds

Right now I think SDS (ultra long S&P500) is a good fund for the next few weeks/months. Or if you are bearish go SSO, 2x inverse of the SPY.

Excessive trading can be bad for your financial health.

Originally Posted by dopey

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This thread frightens me.

Agreed, someone recommended Jim Cramer.

My broker is Internaxx (I am somewhat limited on brokerages because I live in the UK).

I love stockcharts.com, when I was trading I had a subscription but for investment I use the free service. The indicators I have on the chart are two moving averages (5 and 10), parabolic sar, MACD and RSI. I also turn the logarithmic scale off and have it in landscape view. Always remember to look at different timescales when looking at charts, or you may misread the trend (weekly and daily I use at the very least).

I also use Motley Fool's stock screener (http://caps.fool.com/Screener.aspx?s...tnvsnv0000001). Stockcharts.com has screeners too, but they screen based on the technicals whilst I invest based on fundamentals and pick my entry based on charts.

Originally Posted by poelow

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I thought Jim's Cramer's book Real Money was the best of his writings. I would recommend it. Also, shows like Fast Money, Mad Money, and Kudlow and Company (IMO), can give you a good picture of the sentiment of the market, or sectors and stocks to invest in.

This is the worst advice I've seen having to do with the markets in a long time. Cramer and Kudlow are entertainers not experts.

yea i didnt end up going through with this. money got tight and i decided to save it all. thanks for everyones input.

Originally Posted by Omar1223

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yea i didnt end up going through with this. money got tight and i decided to save it all. thanks for everyones input.

Good stuff.

I know Bank of America and Wells Fargo have free trades if you have over $25,000 in assets with that bank, and I believe other large banks may have that also. If you have that much money to invest or play with, that maybe something to look into.

Jim Cramer's advice is something that bothers me, since his word has a large impact on a large audience, its tough to say weather or not its accurate.

I respect his success, though i dont watch his show, or any of those "hot stock tip" shows.

I personally very much avoid day trading, i prefer to make strategic moves when the timing allows for it (not all that often) in stocks i understand using the advice of very trusted sources.

Even so its still easy to take a short term loss since no one is 100% solid with advice.

I generally fallow Warren Buffets moves, since afterall he is the richest man in the world and has gotten there largely by stock market investing.

Originally Posted by iammatt

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I have never seen an amateur trade successfully, and have seen many blow up their savings.

Back in 2002 or so I opened a Scottrade account with $1000, for day and short term trading, and quit with $1440 in it after 7-8 weeks total. I realize it was mostly luck, and I decided to quit while I was ahead. But technically I was successful, though if I had spent all the research time doing something else I might have made more than $440. Probably not more than a 44% profit though.