I had promised that I was going to start my own thread regarding stock investments and the markets. So many things have happened since last time I was here and I really do not feel like sharing my knowledge. But a promise is a promise and there have been few people that have emailed me and supported me.

This thread will deal with investing in the stock markets. I will not discuss individual stocks but discuss ETFs like SPY, DIA, IWM and QQQQ. The one good thing about trading ETFs compared to individual stocks is the the ETFs provide instant diversification among similar companies within the same sector.

I will post more as we go along, regarding entry-price, profit-target and stop-losses. I do not think that any ETF is good or bad. It is good only if I'm making money and bad if I'm losig money.

If you have not been in the market so far, please read this as an information piece only rather than my recommendations. There is risk involved and you should know how much risk to take on any position.

Any suggestations, comments and criticisms are welcome as long as it is market related. If this thread gets out of hand and we start discussing off-topics, I'll stop posting.

Have a happy new year!!!! May 2007 bring you and your family lots of joys and riches.

Emini is right, IB's support sucks ass and their charts aren't that good either. I was gonna open and account with them but ended up doing so with a Canadian broker. I pay for ECNs but given the fact that my orders aren't large, my orders typically fall under $10 each way so I don't mind that.

But other than that, and Emini would know best, IB also allows for API trading system development (which costs a bit more to execute by the way), which could come in handy if you're trained in mathematics and programming. Do people use IB for that kinda thing Emini? I do eventually plan to trade using quantiative methods (that could mean almost a decade as I'll need a job first).

An alternative to IB could also be Quotetracker. Those guys can integrate your account with IB and give you only those features that you have in IB. They're owned by TD-Ameritrade and if you have an Ameritrade account, QuoteTracker's premium membership is free for you. I love QT's charts. It has a really nice layout and your watchlists are really well laid out. I've used my canadian broker's account to log into QT and trade. It's really nice.

Here's something I noted about trading platforms: a large number of discount brokers that offer access to the markets via some desktop trading platform do so through a company called Nexa Technologies. I can't say so about the US, but in Canada, ALL of the major discount brokerages, even TD Waterhouse's trading platform has been developed by Nexa. Check out their producs. A lot of the time people find themselves using the same platform even if they switch brokers. Be careful

http://www.nexatech.com/eng/products/axis/index.html

Samsara, I've made good money by simply using yahoo charts. l.o.l. ok, that's a bit too much.

this is the one I frequently use:

www.prophet.net  

Their java chart is really good. I've seen Realtick's charts and I doubt if there's anything in the world that beats them. But for a free version, prophet's charts are like RealTick's charts compared to other free ones.

I personally stay away from much of technical analysis. I usually download data and do some of my own voodoo on them. Makes me feel like a freakin quant.

The trend lines and price volume information are my best friends, ALWAYS!!!

And give QT a try.

TT

Thanks timetraveller bro.  BTW, your take on Nexa Technologies was helpful.  I will check out IBs demo tomorrow and see if thats exactly what I'm lookign for as I've been using Scottrade and FXCM for my personal dealings for the past 3-4 years now but I'm on the lookout for a platform where both FX and Equities (along with futures, Options and commodities) are integrated into one single platform...I had heard from sources IB has that feature.  This would hep me leverage larger positions (since I don't need to split funds between 2 firms/platforms) and also the time spent jumping from one platform to another could be eliminated.  I hope to see IB's platform allow me to do just that.  As per your suggestion, I'll see if quotetracker works as well.  Thanks again for all the help emini and time bro.  Happy trading! 

BTW, looks like the rally today has taken its after-effects to the NIKKEI...Its up 250 as I type this!! 

Damn, this is all over the news....after Nick Leeson and his Barings Banks fiasco, now the same scenario at one of the French giants by another rogue trader:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=asRrRCRQ724U&refer=home

LOL!!

I just applied for a position there last night as a junior derivatives analyst. Freaked the crap out of me this morning.

I'm def. not qualified to trade anything other than stocks.  So Nexa's platforms work fine for me. they're pretty too.

Enjoy the dead cat bounce when you can guys.. I think yesterdays and to some extent

todays rise can be contributed to two factors..

i) Traders profit taking on their shorts and averaging out - Look at Citi group and

the whole financial sector's profermance for past few days.. that tells the story

ii) Qtr end - ppl are trying to re-balance their portfolio selling the commodities

like gold and oil and bonds and investing them on stocks

I think all in all the picture is still very dim..

We seem to have a pretty experienced bunch in here.. hum!! Do you guys mind telling me

how long have you been doing this? It seems to be like emini has be doing this for

quite a while.. Anyone in here who has been in a recession before?

The market went up as I had thought it would. I think we will get to 1460-1480 before we can tell if this is a rally in a bear market or just a big correction in a bull market. My analysis tells me that it is a rally in a bear market but I have been wrong before. Like I said in my earlier post that the market never goes up or down in a straight line, there are always retractments/corrections on the way. It all depends on how much you want to risk and how you want to play. You need to identify how you will play the game before jumping in. Value investors have made money and growth investors have made money, usually the people that don't make money are the one who do not know what their goal and strategy is; it's like any other thing in life. The people who know what they want in life and work for it are more successful than the ones that have no clue, kinda like the lottery winner who goes broke in a year.

TT, that's some good info. I have never used those but will definately look into it. Thanks.

Samsara, Were you watching the futures today? It worked exactly like I had said yesterday.....Bought at 1340 and got out at 1350. 10 ES points per contract comes to $500. I will post the chart over the week-end.

0_0, A bounce is a bounce, dead cat bounce does not mean a whole lot. This is not qtr end window dressing that usually happens in March, June, Sept and Dec. I was around in the last bull market and the recession, but I was in school that time so I was doing 50-100 shares and mostly swing trading. Could not afford to do more than 100 shares.

Looks like we lost Bri.... 

 

This is some crazy market. There is no follow through on the upside and every rally is being sold into. Time for me to take a break here and re-evaluate. Hopefully, we will know better after the Fed meeting.

Fed meeting? I thought the judgment day would be the day GDP report release day next week.. as for me, I am already in the bear camp as you already know. I am hoping this to be my first recession and I am heavy on Gold but I am having few problems with its liquidity. When the dust settles, I would look fwd to investing on big names like Citi and BofA.

Hey Emini and TT bhai,
I am still around. It is nice to see Emini get back to his groove.

Market. Hmmmm looks like it is something unprecedented. Very hard to tell where we are going. But, then Emini ji has a point. As always. There are opportunities in upside as well as downside. 

If I had monies. I would go buy lots right now. Lock it up for a year or two and reap great returns.

You all have a great weekend. I am down with flu and fever, hope it will get well by the weekend.

Best!
Bricolage

Ps TT bhai, any luck with job. Ani how is the new home buying shaping up for you?

O_O: If you are following the long-term trend, it makes sense to sell everything and get in cash or gold. I am trying to capture the intermediate trend, so I'll often go long in a bear market and short in a bull market.

emini, bri is back!!  Anyway, like you said, the Fed minutes are what the markets seems to be waiting for.  I feel its still too uncertain to call anything especially with the big kahuna: The GDP figues coming out too.  Well, the wild volatility will continue until Wednesday atleast.

uufff samsara... hearing u talking financials... its like hearing OJ simpson saying i didnt kill nicole brown.

please get a new nick name.

hahaha  dumazz (aka latoboy) why don't you start another thread where I kick you azz there...Lets leave this thread for solely market watching/economic analysis purposes.  Maybe a few peeps would join your thread if you begin talking about your job: toliet claning functions.  Leave this thread alone, would ya suka??

 

Admin, pls do the necessary as it seems that we have a TROLL in da house!! 

latoboy, take your crap somewhere else. This thread is for people that want to discuss markets only.

Just to add to my previous posts, I went through Samsara's previous posts here and I can tell that he knows how markets work.

latoboy,

San CAN erase posts AND DELETE ACCOUNTS. Just letting you know. This is a very heavily read thread (as per my knowledge, gauging by the longest running/ informative/ most watched, this thread is NUMERO UNO.)

So please, take your ideas about Samsara's knowledge somewhere else.

Thanks

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Bri broda!!! welcome back. Job hunt is going good. Living in the tundra doesn't help much if you are targeting new york. Funny thing is most jobs are in London and they'll never even bother interviewing me unless I have some connection down there. Douchebags I helped in assignments are making $100,000 per year easy right now and here I am still looking. Although, I still have one last semester to go. I'm just about to revamp my resume one more time.

As for house,I'm glad the rates are falling. We have a new governor to be sworn in around March and the first thing he will do is cut our rates again. So that's another plus.

How's family? and cricket? I am so glad India kicked australia's ass in the third one. Someone had to break their ego.

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Did anyone notice how the puts in the S&P went nuts this morning right after the bell? I have found that, albeit speculative, looking at options chain in the first hour can be helpful to gauge the remander of the day's trend.

Have a great weekend everyone. I was gonna post a funny video but doesn't seem to work.

Eminitrader bro,

 you have done great job by strating this thread. this will really help the busniess and economic maniacs  like me.i expect answers to questions as well if possible.

thanks bro.keep it up...

right now im hoping the us economy goes into recession. not that im a pesimmistic person.. but when the economy goes go into recesseion it will create a bunch of buying opportunities.. bernanke did a big problem by cutting such drasticly interest rates... long term i think he is creating a bigger problem. pretty much i think we will see a repeat of the 2001 years when greenspan had the super low interest rates and it fueled the housing and subprime mess.

for the next month i will guess the stock indexes will go up and down by 200 or 300 points.. it will remain very volatile.

right now like many others im waiting for the market to bottom out. cash is king... once i see a real upward trend i will start buying but for now i will stay quiet.. im not a big risk taker and i invest long term.