Good luck alevin!
I probably should have moved my comment in the "Shorting for Dummies" thread over to your new home. And brought a plate of cookies!
Welcome to the neighborhood!
Lady
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. - Derek Bok
Well, combining yesterday and Wednesday, bought and sold 3 ETFs paper trading, managed to lose 8% of my cash, but also managed NOT to lose 18% of my cash which would have happened in I'd stayed in SCO yesterday after buying on Wed. Wed. SCO dropped 8% after I bought, but I believe in cutting losses quickly, so once I realized the USO:SCO hedging wasn't working, (USO up, SCO way down), I put in an order yesterday before the market opened, to sell SCO at market. Still took 45 minutes after the open to get the order filled. If I hadn't gotten out right then, I'd have lost another 10% on the trade yesterday on top of the 8% I'd already lost. I'll post real numbers this evening when life slows down a little. I tried to post trade numbers last night but got timed out and kicked out before posting, didn't have mental energy and patience to log back on and try again.
It's a good thing I did screen prints of my paper trades the last couple days so I could study them offline. Logged in tonight and discovered the paper trades were wiped clean, all 6 of them that I did Wed and yesterday. Good to know, eh?
so ok, here's what I did on Wed.
FAS-sold short at market-good til close (that would mean the broker was able to borrow the shares from somewhere for me to sell, right?). Price $5.53. the bid-asks promptly dropped down into 5.14-5.15 range.
FAS-decided to snag a small profit (practice, remember?)-put in a "buy to close" order good til close, at market. Covered at $5.01. Gain= $22.00 and change-enough to cover commission for 1 leg and tax on the gain. Hah!
USO-bought limit order-$24.40. got scared. Sold same day, within the hour.
USO sold $25.51. Gain=enough to cover these trades plus second leg of the FAS trade.
SCO-bought Wednesday am (good til close)-looked like it was going up, bought at $49.25.
SCO-tanked that day-EOD 8%. Sold Thurs at market open-market order, good til close. can't find record of sale price but Whew! Only lost 9% of total cash on that one, SCO tanked another 10% EOD after I sold at open.
Hi Allie, thanks for posting your moves in such detail! As we're all learning together it helps me to understand the trades.
I need to do that too. I incurred an 8% tuition payment to ETF University that I should share with others so that nobody else does what I did.I'll try to put the details together and share it over at my house.
Thanks again!
Lady
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. - Derek Bok
I'm sorry so frazzled lately I haven't even said thanks for the visit yet. As you can see, I'm still unpacking, boxes everywhere, no pictures on the walls, but making progress. The cookies were a great pickmeupper when I took a break. Thanks! There's a few left to share if anyone else comes by, but they're going fast.![]()
Well, OK. today was the day I jumped in and got wet-finally. I was hoping GLD would drop more before I bought my first position, but in the first hour it looked as tho I shouldn't wait any longer, so I went and bought at market.
bought GLD @ $91.17.
I still have 2/3 powder dry. Emotions took over this morning when I read KD Market-Ticker, so was not as calm and judicious as I normally try to be. I suspect I'll be hanging onto this position for awhile, but I have a trailing stop on it, so we'll see.
Filling out my spreadsheet tonight for seed I want to buy for first serious garden (read KD today-you'll want a garden too). Will send order in the morning. The tree service guy is coming in the am also-hope that when he gets done, there'll be a lot more sunlight in the backyard for garden space. I need it-too much shade in all the wrong places.
Stopped by local glass shop after work tonight to ask about junk windows and doors in their salvage yard-I was inquiring due to thinking about trying my hand at cold frame gardening-first time ever. They said I could have all the salvage windows and doors I want-for FREE! That definitely makes the cold frame idea more incentivized. I was anticipating paying a minor fee for what I might want. Recycling at its best, I love it!![]()
GDX and GTU were my very first purchases. I think you and I are both going to be happy with our picks!And congratulations on the garden! We had a small one last year, but we're pulling up half the sod in our back yard for a big garden this year and I think it's a good idea. Love your recycling into a cold frame garden idea! Let us know how it works out, okay?
Lady
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. - Derek Bok
Thanks Lady, I'm happy with my pick so far, I think. Not stopped out yet. Am a bit confused tho about my trading program process. With the market buy order I set a trailing stop up of .5 pts (program wouldn't let me set trailing stop down).
The spread when I sent in the buy order was between 0 and 90.67 (ask and bid). It created the order after it filled it. How does that work? the record says the order was created at 11.59:15am, but the order was filled slightly earlier at 11.58:47. Do you get that? How do you create an order after its already filled?
My other puzzlement was that the screen said the trailing stop was up by .5 pts from 90.67 (which appeared to be market value when I sent in the order), and it filled the order at exactly .5 pts higher than 90.67 . It's like it moved the stop up before I bought and I bought at the new stop! And the record doesn't show an untriggered trailing stop still active at this point so I really think am not sure I still have a trailing stop on the darn thing. Does any of what I said make sense to you? to anybody?