Investing megathread extravaganza

[DaFace]

A place to talk about investing stuff.

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

Originally Posted by candyman

Anyone invest in ETF's? I've only done stocks/crypto so don't know much about them, but I'm getting tired of trying to find the next big thing, being late, buying too high and selling for a minimal profit. I just dont have the time/patience for it and honestly kind of suck at it.

Are ETF's a good long term investment that I dont need to check on every day? Looks like all of the ARK ETF's have steadily done well over the last year.

Get your cash ready for ARKX which should start around the end of March

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by candyman

Anyone invest in ETF's? I've only done stocks/crypto so don't know much about them, but I'm getting tired of trying to find the next big thing, being late, buying too high and selling for a minimal profit. I just dont have the time/patience for it and honestly kind of suck at it.

Are ETF's a good long term investment that I dont need to check on every day? Looks like all of the ARK ETF's have steadily done well over the last year.

ETFs are the best long term investment. They won’t outrun the stock market, but most mutual funds don’t either. Plus their fees are super cheap, maybe free in etrade. My IRA is in S&P ETF.

[scho63]

I invested in RED 9 today. No good. Tomorrow is BLACK 26. I heard it's a sure thing.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by scho63

I invested in RED 9 today. No good. Tomorrow is BLACK 26. I heard it's a sure thing.

Kind of true. Flow with momentum but have risk management strategies. Too many buy and hold because they’ve got some price target in their head. It’s dangerous.

Right now, the market is "Extremely" easy for bulls, everything goes up like a rocket ship... if thats your strategy, this wont last long after stimulus, and if you were trading back in september/october last year, you would have noticed the market slowed down almost to a halt, like it normally is. So I encourage you to make sure that your strategies dont only rely on buying some hype stock and hold then sell at a profit, cause the profit taking might never come in a real market

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by candyman

Anyone invest in ETF's? I've only done stocks/crypto so don't know much about them, but I'm getting tired of trying to find the next big thing, being late, buying too high and selling for a minimal profit. I just dont have the time/patience for it and honestly kind of suck at it.

Are ETF's a good long term investment that I dont need to check on every day? Looks like all of the ARK ETF's have steadily done well over the last year.

ARK funds are good. I’ve moved some of my wife’s IRA over to them.

Set and forget. Rebalance them 1-2x per year if needed.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by KCUnited

I'm +160% on CCIV after Gochiefs initial post in this thread

Lew, send that man a bottle of his choice on my behalf!

Seriously though, great call

I’ve offered to send him a bottle before. He always declines.

What’s the plan with this one?

[KCUnited]

Originally Posted by lewdog

I’ve offered to send him a bottle before. He always declines.

What’s the plan with this one?

100% retail so Lambos and blow or I just get my money back

[Hammock Parties]

Originally Posted by lewdog

I’ve offered to send him a bottle before. He always declines.

What’s the plan with this one?

Only once

You can send me a bottle when I buy a house.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by Hammock Parties

Only once

You can send me a bottle when I buy a house.

Deal.

Just stop Neg repping me man!

[Hammock Parties]

as soon as you stop pretending to be the tom riddle of the Dow Jones

[lewdog]

I hope this can be helpful to some but risk management and capital loss prevention are huge if you want your account to grow over time. Without some discipline, all it takes is one bad stock purchase to wipe out months or years of gains. Too many people right now are looking for quick, large gains and comparing themselves to others. This leads to bad decisions and large draw-downs if the market or your stocks correct.

Rules that I believe help accomplish this.
1. Never put more than 10% of your total account value in any one stock.
2. Always determine your exit point if the stock heads south. Stop losses are crucial if this position is 5% or greater of your total account value because basic math will show you this. If it’s a penny stock and maybe it’s only a few hundred dollars and less than 1% of your total account value, a stop is probably not needed.
3. A stop market loss should never be set to greater than 10% loss. I track all my trades and try to keep losses to 4-8%. If I can double my gains compared to losses, I only have to be right on 50% of my trades to make a nice profit.

Why 10% position size and 10% stop loss makes sense….it protects your total account value in ANY kind of market. Let’s use a $10k account balance for easy math.

If a risky trader decides to use two, $5k position sizes to enter two stocks and doesn’t use a stop loss (hey it’s a volatile penny stock!). If one of those positions heads south and loses 50% that position is now worth $2,500. The trader decides to get out of that trade (finally!) and moves to a different stock. Now in order to get back to break even (original $5k), that new position must gain 100%. 100% just to get back to break even! You are now guaranteed going to try to enter riskier trades and look for even quicker profits, many times resulting in worse decisions and more damage to your total account value.

Let’s say this trader followed the rules I posted here. At most for his $10k account he would have a $1k position size. If he gets an entry and sets a stop loss at maximum 10% loss on this $1k position, at most he will lose is $100 on any one trade. $100 is only 1% of total account value. You still maintain capital to find smaller, quicker gains and not have to final a unicorn to gain 100% in a stock to get back to breakeven like the scenario above.

The worst feeling you can have is a huge drawdown on your account. I promise you.

[-King-]

Originally Posted by lewdog

I hope this can be helpful to some but risk management and capital loss prevention are huge if you want your account to grow over time. Without some discipline, all it takes is one bad stock purchase to wipe out months or years of gains. Too many people right now are looking for quick, large gains and comparing themselves to others. This leads to bad decisions and large draw-downs if the market or your stocks correct.

Rules that I believe help accomplish this.
1. Never put more than 10% of your total account value in any one stock.
2. Always determine your exit point if the stock heads south. Stop losses are crucial if this position is 5% or greater of your total account value because basic math will show you this. If it’s a penny stock and maybe it’s only a few hundred dollars and less than 1% of your total account value, a stop is probably not needed.
3. A stop market loss should never be set to greater than 10% loss. I track all my trades and try to keep losses to 4-8%. If I can double my gains compared to losses, I only have to be right on 50% of my trades to make a nice profit.

Why 10% position size and 10% stop loss makes sense….it protects your total account value in ANY kind of market. Let’s use a $10k account balance for easy math.

If a risky trader decides to use two, $5k position sizes to enter two stocks and doesn’t use a stop loss (hey it’s a volatile penny stock!). If one of those positions heads south and loses 50% that position is now worth $2,500. The trader decides to get out of that trade (finally!) and moves to a different stock. Now in order to get back to break even (original $5k), that new position must gain 100%. 100% just to get back to break even! You are now guaranteed going to try to enter riskier trades and look for even quicker profits, many times resulting in worse decisions and more damage to your total account value.

Let’s say this trader followed the rules I posted here. At most for his $10k account he would have a $1k position size. If he gets an entry and sets a stop loss at maximum 10% loss on this $1k position, at most he will lose is $100 on any one trade. $100 is only 1% of total account value. You still maintain capital to find smaller, quicker gains and not have to final a unicorn to gain 100% in a stock to get back to breakeven like the scenario above.

The worst feeling you can have is a huge drawdown on your account. I promise you.

Regarding your 10% rule. I do agree with you but what if you were early on a stock that blew up. For example, I was earlyish on Tesla and bought a bunch in the 75-200 range pre split. For that reason it's well over 10% of my total account value. Would you say that's the exception to your rule or would you try to diversify away from it and lower the percentage?

[Hammock Parties]

Those rules would have taken me out of CCIV already, because the stock was so volatile early.

They are good rules for scaredy cats, though.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by -King-

Regarding your 10% rule. I do agree with you but what if you were early on a stock that blew up. For example, I was earlyish on Tesla and bought a bunch in the 75-200 range pre split. For that reason it's well over 10% of my total account value. Would you say that's the exception to your rule or would you try to diversify away from it and lower the percentage?

If you haven’t, take profits. Even if they sit in cash awhile until you find something you’re happy with. It doesn’t have to be all of it but take some profits.

I’m fond of taking profits to break even and let the profits ride awhile but others may disagree.

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

Originally Posted by Hammock Parties

Those rules would have taken me out of CCIV already, because the stock was so volatile early.

They are good rules for scaredy cats, though.

People don't have to be scaredy cats to be smart. That's all good advice.

I set up a new account this year just to be a little more aggressive in it and only put in $3500 to get it going. I'll add another 1500 shortly with a goal of getting to 50K by year end. I'm not following the smart rules in this account . it's Homerun or bust. BUT what I'm doing in this account is every time I hit a home run I add 1 share into each of the 5 ARK funds to protect my base.