I am not a broker or anything, i just play around with about $10k in the market.

My latest observations are (voice your opinion if you agree or disagree).... All of the day traders seem to be happy with making a few $ one day, so they all bail (pretty much) the next day or two.

My opinion is that there is no "get a good stock and hold" method like in the past. The day traders buy Microsoft at $45, it hits $48 and they all sell, so it drops back to $46... they all buy again, back up a buck or two.... they sell again.??

Anyone seeing this.

Scot

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I try to jump in, then jump out, just like everyone else. I see no future in holding anything longterm.

 

That's exactly the way I see it. I follow the stocks, but I don't invest. I just find it interesting to see if I can pick a winner. I'm happy to say, so far I've picked nothing but loosers and I've lost nothing.

 

I just lost another 20k to margin call.
I'm losing the game
Oh well, it all started with play money anyway. Most of my $$$ are tucked away monthly to other investments.

 

I stayed out of the market in 2000, but in 1999 I was doing a semi-day trader thing where I would buy and hold for anywhere from a day to a few days. I concentrated on a few specific stocks and just watched their trends. I sold everything between Thanksgiving and Christmas that year. Overall I did pretty well. 2000 was not a market to play in, and so far, 2001 isn't looking very good either.

 

That is the ONLY way you can recuperate or make any $$$ now aday since the market is so volatile. However, I have developed two porfolios for me: day-trading and keeper. You would want to continue to hold on to INTC, MSFT,CSCO,AOL,JDSU,JNJ, etc.... These are real well established leaders Fortune 500 companies. Then I will follow about 30 other real volatile stocks that I would day trading.

 

I would agree...the volatility of the market is really fueled by the day traders. Margin calls have forced a lot of premature trading of stocks to cover loses. That did not cause the plunge in the market, but it did help it.

 

THAT IS WHY I NEVER GO ON MARGIN! I work at NASDAQ as many know and raz me about it too!

Today was a funny day. I start getting calls about these trades that are going out that werent put out by those brokers. Lots and lots....1200 in all! Some ACE in out testing facility some how dumped into production and shot off REAL TRADES! All hell broke loose so after another 45 min past my due time to get out and well over an hr and a half of pounding numbers we solved all but 4 trades!

I am not a trader I hope never to be but I just keep the place running. Pretty boaring most of the time then sometimes all hell breaks loose.

The reason for the larger swings are more day trading by BIG FIRMS not the Joe off the street trader. Mutual funds move markets not day traders. Though some funds have taken on the day trading mentality!

 

Scot, you are referring to a method of investing called 'rolling stocks' ... where patterns are established over time how a stock performs and trades are made which take advantage of these fluctuations...

A good resource for this is www.rollingstocks.com ... it's a pretty good site for learning how to do this. I am studying the concept now and will be foraying into the arena soon. It can very profitable when you have a lot of deals going, but it requires a lot of attention.

Wade Cook also teaches this concept... www.wadecook.com ...

HTH!