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Old 29 August 2014, 04:16 PM   #35
adamlea
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Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Great Plains
Watch: Exp II 216570 Blk
Posts: 1,190
Quote:
Originally Posted by opticalserenity View Post
Excellent thread idea. My recommendation to anyone new to the world of stock trading would be to read, read, and then read some more. I'm always blown away when I come across someone dumping $75k into a single stock, without understanding the difference between a market, limit, or stop limit order.

Second tip: Learn about options. Using call and put options are an incredibly good way to hedge your positions. Also, they're mighty fun.

Seeking Alpha is a good website, also, I recommend the Motley Fool. They have excellent podcast / radio shows and a great YouTube channel.

Adamlea, learn the "greeks." When you look at a stock, learn how to quickly read the EPS, Alpha, Beta, and 52-week range. Those will give you some idea of health. They're much like a human's vital signs. Just because someone has a perfectly reasonable heart rate, blood pressure, and SpO2, doesn't mean that they're healthy. :)
Great advice - you've given me some things to think about. I appreciate it. I'm still trying to hone my approach.

I primarily sold naked puts last year. Plus some covered calls. Did very well with IOC, LINE, and some others. Got burned - badly - with IOC as well. I haven't learned how to do spreads yet, but I'm going to have to build my reserves back up before I can get back into options. I felt like I needed to file an order of protection from abuse and talk to a counselor after I got thoroughly violated by the tax man this year.

I used to read Seeking Alpha (SA) regularly, but now I only read it occasionally. Last year, SA posted an article about a CEO of a company I had sold puts on who, according to the post, was being indicted for sundry SEC violations. Predictably, the underlying tanked and my gains evaporated. I traced the source back to an unsubstantiated Tweet that had been posted on another financial blog. I haven't fully trusted SA since. The whole thing reminded me of that scene from Oliver Stone's Wall Street where Bud Fox calls a financial reporter from a pay-phone with the cryptic message: "Blue Horseshoe loves Andicott Steel"

It seems like so many secondary sources are susceptible to spin - a la The Wolfe of Wall Street. So, it seems to me that company financial data and technicals are the best things to look at.

What is a qualified account? What is a SIPP plan? And can you trade with these types of accounts? How do you avoid getting raped on capital gains? I pose these questions in the most general sense. I'm a self-employed civil rights attorney with LLC. Civil rights cases being what they are, my draws are irregular. As such, I'm trying to learn as much as I can about how to make smart trades and how to keep more of my income - that's why I'm curious about qualified accounts and SIPP plans.
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