instatrade

Something to consider is adjusting the magnification of the page so the chart, including the volume field, and also the "my charts" field, show in their entirety. You have to scroll down to center them in the window. You probably want to use a full screen window, here.

The chart I'm looking at has lots of bars that start at .0001. That's our super-ultra cheap purchase price. And lots of these bars, or nearby bars, end at .002. If you can buy at .0001 and sell at .002, which seems like it might be possible, you can make 20x your investment, well, 19x, and often in a few days. Zoonds!.

Here's how you place an order: Using a calculator, divide 10 ($10) by .0001. That's 100,000 shares. Well, you might not fill an order of that size every day, but there are days that traded over a million shares, so you might get a fill. Also, I need to investigate something. Now, how you place the trade is very important. If you're doing like I'm doing, an evening trading session, now's the time to place an order. Use a LIMIT ORDER. If you don't know why I'm saying that, and you don't know what a limit order is, don't trade. If you do know what a limit order is, but you don't know why I'm saying you should use one, it's to protect you from catastrophe. If you use a limit order (and be very sure that's what you're doing: you choose the price and will pay no more than that price), you are safe. If you don't, YOU ARE AT GREAT RISK. And here's what I need to find out: I'm using "all or nothing orders," because I'm afraid if DON'T, I could end up paying GIANT EXTRA COMMISSION." But that might not be true. I have to find out, because, if I don't need to use an all or nothing order, I'm more likely to be able to buy the stock (maybe).

OK, so I'm placing a limit order for 100,000 shares, all or nothing, good until cancelled, at .0001. What do I expect my investment to turn into? $200, less about $15 in commissions. Hmm. That's really good. I can just go with it. (Do you want to buy $100 worth? Or $20 worth? It really depends on the size of your account. I'm trading 1/200th of my account. I can make 200 loosing trades before I run out of money.) And, ideally, we would do a lot of trades like this. But, is that practical? A lot of trades is a lot of work. The question is, how safe are these trades. I actually really like these stocks ... but I don't have hard and fast evidence that these trades work. Well, one reason to use a short term method is that you can test your system, in actual practice, in a relatively short period of time (and, with this system, your risk is tightly controlled). One note: even if the system tests well, it REQUIRES that you only risk a small amount of your capital on one trade. If you don't observe this rule, one bad trade could wipe you out. As your account grows, keep the percent of it you put into a trade the same. (Note, too, that this system kind of forces you to place small trades, since these are, by definition, thinly traded stocks.)

A final note: do go to the "fundamentals" tab and read the company profile. Just ignore the numbers. But the profile will tell you what the company does, and I like to know if I'm investing in something auful sounding, like mining, say, or weapons, or in something nice sounding, like, say, "quality dog food." It's not that I'm influencing the business, probably at all. (I'm just skimming cash.) I just like to know. And it also might help me remember the symbol, and the chart.

Late note: I couldn't place a trade because of a technicality, having to do with thin trading. Scottrade suggests I call to place the order. Also, if you don't have a trading account, but you want to see how the trade works out on charts, you can follow the stock, ACLH, at a number of locations, such as Yahoo Finance.

stock system

I've figured out a short term trading system, after literally years of thinking about it. It has the following characteristics: all you need is a trading account, no (expensive) analytical software. Also, it looks like you only need to do a limited session on line, every day. No need to watch the market all day. Lastly, which is essentially required to fulfill item 2, it promises extreme returns, which means, also, that you only need to make a very small investment in any given trade ($10!) to get real returns. (I'm looking at a stock that should return 66x the investment in a period of weeks. Your $10 would turn into $660.)

If you have a Scottrade account (hint, hint), go to "quotes and research", then "stocks", then "screener". Select "price performance", and input price change greater than -100% and less than -75%, and 52 weeks. I got a list of 800 stocks. Select, "make this my default screen," then select "view ### results". You will get a list. Look for the "5 day change" column. Visually scan the results for numbers like "-90%".

I got one of those on the first page. Is it a tradeable stock? I think it is. It looks great. To see the chart, click the symbol. Then you have to choose "charts", and, once you're there, "my charts". But, if you haven't set up any charts, first, you have to do that. Choose "time range," and "20 years/ weekly". From the "lower indicater" menu, choose "volume". That's all you should need. Now, save that chart ("save chart settings, at the bottom"), using the name y20. Repeat this process for 2 year (y2), 4 year, and 6 month (m6) charts. (These seem to be my favorites.) If you feel like you want others, add those, too.

Because this scan is specifically a short term scan, the 6 month chart should mostly be all you need. Is it trading in some kind of active way? Are there a fair abundance of long bars? There will also be lots of no bar and short bar days, probably, but if that's almost all there is, maybe you should look for another stock. A look at a the 20y (max) chart will give you additional basis for making an assessment. You will probably see big (huge, in terms of price change) waves of active trading, followed by a long tail at very low prices. That's a good stock. If it's just a cloud of inactive days, ignore it.

Now you need to figure out how to place a trade. I'm going to do another post about today's first result. It took me about 5 minutes to find it, and, as I say, it looks great.

I'll put all these posts under the "short term 1" tag, which you can select (here, or at the bottom of any stock post) to look at all entries on this subject.