After 300+ trades in 2011, only ended up 5% lol

[YLTL_Dan]

I must say, I'm very surprised to see the number of non-conservative investors on this board. I realize it's only like five of you discussing, but I figured the overall sentiment of the forum would be buy and hold.

In my opinion, we need to realize there are a lot of newbies to the money world on this board, and we need to enlighten everyone on the dangers of day-trading. It sounds like some of you might be pretty good at it, but on average, 90% of day traders lose money.

I invest for the long term... knowing I'm not smart enough to time or trick the market. If you want to read more of my reasonings, check out my article on it.

[KTP]

I have been trading my Nokia in my wells fargo account since I still have 60 something free trades left. Sold 10,000 shares today at $5.21 purchased yesterday at $4.99. These little $2000 nibbles really start adding up, and my trading account is looking nice so far this year. I love trading Nokia because of the strong support near $5 and the tendancy to swing 5% each week.

BTW, don't look at AFFY if you sold at $7 or so (trading at $10.70 today)

[gambler2075]

Sweet, sold my 380K shares of BPAX at about 1.07 premarket ave, +108k

http://www.bilderload.com/daten/20120207bpaxIYXWN.jpg

bought 20K of NGSX at 0.77 for adcom brief in 2 days, should be fun, lol
need to load another 100K into a spec bio so not posting that one.

g

[gambler2075]

Well, with the biotech index up 22% YTD, it was inevitable that the bios would run up.

AMEX BIOTECHNOLOGY INDEX Index Chart - Yahoo! Finance

That being said, IMO we are close to a top... I am looking for a blowoff top to go short via TVIX (not truly short, but volatility can be somewhat correlated). Made a few thousand today trading 15K blocks of TVIX today, before I realized that my strengths lie in swing trades, not picking up pennies daytrading.

I have my eye on a few bios that I need to leg into, but sitting on mostly cash now.

g

[disneysteve]

Are all of us crying a little bit because we sold our AFFY stock last year (I am). It hit $9 today

Nope. I made a nice profit. Sure it could have been more but it also could have tanked. I'm okay with what I made on it.

[KTP]

Are all of us crying a little bit because we sold our AFFY stock last year (I am). It hit $9 today

[Scanner]

That's okay, my AUMN (converted from ECU) tanked about 60%. . .it's up though the last month, rallying. . .I'm holding. Bought in at $17.00 and $8.00/share.

[Slug]

I have to agree. I sold POZN for a decent gain when I got called out of the shares at 4. Still holding YMI and INCY playing both for janus kinase inhibitors. Up about 40% in each. Mostly sitting in cash though. Nothing I see undervalued right now. Might not be looking hard enough though. Lots of irons in the fire.

Glad you're back Gambler!

[gambler2075]

You know, this year has been ok so far, made 118K$ on the INSM trade (sold Jan 20) which was good as I predicted they would lift the clinical hold, but still, last year was painful...

Speculative bios trade very differently in bull vs bear markets...

g

[KTP]

Hey Gambler. It would have been a bad year for me too except for the Microsoft plays. Making over 100% gains on the microsoft options is the only trade that keeps me net positive for all my other blunders.

The wash sale rule kept me from buying back into Corning, which is a good thing as it is now trading around $12.62 (I was considering it in the 13s).

I am heavy into Nokia, trading it like it is an option (it is about that cheap!). It swings sometimes 10% week to week and I have probably traded 40,000 shares by now heh heh. When I look at my cost basis on the 8,000 shares I currently own, it says $2.45 and the stock has never traded below about $4.50.

My hope is that either the Lumia will do well or Microsoft will end up buying the smartphone division of Nokia. Book value on the stock is around $4.50, with 7 billion net cash on hand. Not a super duper risky play, and fun to trade for a 10% gain.

[gambler2075]

Rough year for me... first down year in a while and it was a doozy. At least I can use the 3,000$ annual capital gains loss deduction for many years to come. LOL. Glad I paid my 200K$ tax bill (for 2010) and paid off my 200K$ of med school loans last year when I did.

Still, I'm back to speculating on the bios. We'll see.

g

[kv968]

After selling everything yesterday our taxable account is now up 15% for 2012. Since I am happy with that return even for the whole year, I am putting everything in a 0.5% saving account and waiting for an opportunity to sell a huge cash secured put on SPY (thinking of something like selling a Jan 2013 $110 put for $15 (it is selling for only $6 right now with SPY trading at $129). I have grown fascinated with the idea of selling cash secured puts because if the shares are assigned to you, the put premium is added to the cost basis, meaning you defer tax.

If the Europe mess ends up not being messy, then I will have locked in a 15.5% gain for 2012, which isn't horrible.

What do you think the SPY would have to get down to in order to get $15 for the $110 put? I would imagine that you'd have to be almost ATM in order to get that premium unless volatility really picks up.

[kv968]

I have been burned several times on stop limits due to gap downs over weekends and such.

Instead of using stop LIMIT, just use a stop and that should trigger a sell in a gap down. Albeit it'll be sold at market value but at least you'll be out.

[KTP]

Why totally dump? Couldn't you just set stop limits on them all? That way your winners could run and your downside is limited?

I have been burned several times on stop limits due to gap downs over weekends and such.

If you have some stock (say, maybe Carnival Cruise lines) and a big event happens, the stock can open the next day well below your stop limit and your protection will never get triggered.

I guess if one were invested just in an index, then it is unlikely to have a big gap down, but then again, if I were just trading index funds, I wouldn't be up 15% in 15 days.

Our 401K and IRAs are still in index funds and bond funds, so we have market exposure. And I do still have my mining stocks FCX and TC, along with a core of MSFT, NOK, AAPL, and GOOG.

[Slug]

After selling everything yesterday our taxable account is now up 15% for 2012. Since I am happy with that return even for the whole year, I am putting everything in a 0.5% saving account and waiting for an opportunity to sell a huge cash secured put on SPY (thinking of something like selling a Jan 2013 $110 put for $15 (it is selling for only $6 right now with SPY trading at $129). I have grown fascinated with the idea of selling cash secured puts because if the shares are assigned to you, the put premium is added to the cost basis, meaning you defer tax.

If the Europe mess ends up not being messy, then I will have locked in a 15.5% gain for 2012, which isn't horrible.

Why totally dump? Couldn't you just set stop limits on them all? That way your winners could run and your downside is limited?