Day 3 6/24/14

Day 3 of the journey was a pretty boring one. As you know , if you've been following along, I sold everything in order to pursue day trading. That led to a boring day of watching and searching for stocks to move like PRKR except none of them did. I didn't make too many moves and was very inactive

The one investment I did make was in XNET. XNET had it's IPO today so I am interested in it second day of performance tomorrow. It opened up at $14.50 and quickly rose up to near $16. This was exciting except I hadn't invested yet lol ( always seem to be an hour late). It would've been sold quickly however. Shortly after it's rise , XNET began to tumble, tumbling all the way back to the low 15s, where I ended up buying , and slowly into the high 14s. So you ask , "why would you buy a stock that decreased like that?"  My answer : it was it's first day. I'm hoping I can catch the same rise tomorrow  morning that it had this morning. My assumption is that it was released today so there's no way the majority of investors actually knew about it. After the quick rise this morning, hopefully investors will buy buy buy in the morning so I can sell sell sell in the morning. Hopefully I can walk away with a little bit of profit. I'll take a dollar profit right about now because so far this journey is looking to be a long one. 

-Watkins on Wall Street

Day 2 6/23/2014

Any one that knows me knows I'm a gambler. In gambling, the thrill comes from the non stop action and instant gratification. The slowness of the stock market does not feed into that for me at all. So I sold everything lol. I didn't sell everything just for the heck of it, and in no way am I quitting the market. I just found something new: Day Trading.

Day trading consists of buying stocks and selling them after a very short period of time, normally less than a day. At the end of the day, you end up with no stock in your hands but hopefully some profits. Let's take a look at what would have happened today if I were day trading instead of holding on to future investments.

By holding on to the investments I currently had, I ended up losing money on the day. If I would have saved that money and started day trading, the results would've been drastically different. ParkerVision (PRKR) was the day trade of the day. After the initial drop from $5 to $1 per share at the start of the day, PRKR began to slowly rise. At mid day, the stock capped at 2.35. Now most people look at that and say, " It only went up a dollar and some cent." However, that is a 135% increase. One dollar and 35 cent increase PER SHARE could be huge. For instance, if I would've purchased 500 shares of PRKR at $1 a piece, it would've cost me $500. If I sell these 500 shares at $2.35 mid day, I walk away with $1175. A $675 profit!! Of course, I am pissed I did not do such a thing today and feel like I wasted a golden opportunity. Hopefully over the course of the week, there will another opportunity like this and I am able to capitalize on it.

So after just one day on the market, I've completely switched strategies. Now the key is figuring out what penny stocks will move like PRKR did today.

Day 1 : 6/20/2014

Today was the first step into my adventure in the stock market. I spent this past week researching stocks and comparing financial ratios to see what I would invest in. At the end of the day, I realized it's a lot of information to try and take in and this will truly be a long journey. I sat trying to figure out indicators for positive stock price movement. When I think long term investing, I look for a company that is in good financial position and is currently making money. This led me to believe the debt to equity ratio, operating margin, and net income would be significant factors in growth. I'm sure there are plenty of other factors involved, but these are the ones I'm starting with and we'll see where it leads me.

I compiled a list of stocks from thestreet.com that were listed as top stocks in their respective industries. I was mainly looking for stock less that $35 because I am only starting with $500 in my account. In an attempt for diversification, I felt searching by sector/ industry would be my best bet. I ended up with about 30 stocks. I calculated (or found in some instances) the key factors I was searching for and was able to narrow my options down to about 8 stocks. After some research on the companies and some candlestick chart analysis, I selected 5 stocks that I wanted a piece (no matter how tiny) of. Those stocks were : REIS, YHOO, GRC, WX, and TCAP.

The morning hit and I was stoked about my first investment, up bright and early to wish the market a good morning. I went to place my orders in my Merill Edge account only to find out I was unable to trade for REIS, GRC, and WX because they are OTC stocks and I have to wait 10 business days for some pass that allows me to trade those. I was hot! I did all that research and 3 of my 5 stocks I couldn't even invest in. The most upsetting thing was watching GRC move from  36.05 to 39.18 over the course of the day! That would've been an amazing start to my investing career!

I was able to get a piece of YHOO, TCAP, and SPHQ today and hope to invest in more and more stocks as time goes by. Why invest in Yahoo at this moment? ALIBABA. Alibaba is the Chinese equivalent to  Amazon.com and is scheduled for the biggest IPO in history. With Yahoo owning 24% of Alibaba, I'm expecting great returns once the IPO is done and Alibaba is trading in full swing.

Overall, the day was neither good nor bad. TCAP had a slight rise, SPHQ stayed neutral and YHOO had a decline. A negative day in the market for me but I'm expecting big things from Yahoo in the upcoming months. Biggest disappointment: GRC! Still can't believe it. Well back at it Monday and we'll see what happens.

-Watkins On Wall Street