Welcome Spork, :welcome Etrade is a nice service. However, their commissions are near $20 for entry and exit, so they're a bit pricey for what you describe with a $1,500.00 nest egg. My suggestion with that amount of money is to concentrate it. Buy all one stock and don't try to trade much. $40 is the total commission. You lose almost 3% of your capital on a trade. Better yet, put $1,500 into the best stock you can and wait for it to double. Your options get better at between $3,000 to $5,000, especially when you introduce margin.
However wouldnt it be a bad idea to put all my eggs in one basket? Wouldnt it be best to choose 2 or 3 long term stocks? PS: you guys are really friendly. its nice to see such a kind bunch of people!
i personally think that it would be smart to do so but only in 1 and only 1 condition which is that u do the research of the company in so much detail that u know every inch of the company and then u would be ready to face any ups and downs of the company for the next 1, 2 or 3 years to my humble opinion towards a 250%(conservatively) if not more in the long hall.... well that is my opinion im sure someone else will fill in or contradict it.... but the rule of thumb that i cannot emphasize enough is do ur own research and then u will not put urself at the mercy of any market manipulators. chahine
the problem is, i dont know where to start with that kind of research. where and when do i choose the company that i'm going to do some in depth research on?
I would actually suggest switching over to Sharebuilder. It only takes 4 dollars to buy and 15 dollars to sell without any hidden fees (assuming you choose the basic plan). For your amount of initial investment, the commissions won't take such a big chunk of your profits. I also think it would be wise to concentrate your investment on one stock, and trade only when necessary as the comission fees will bite more and more into your profits the more dispersed your investment is. Of course, the drawback is that you can only buy stocks at 4 bucks on Tuesdays, which is a major drag. Then again, you are in for the long haul so that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Oh and welcome to the board! :)
If you get the "upgraded" Sharebuilder plan it's $12 a month for up to six trades, making it basically $2 a trade and then if you do more than six trades a month it is still $2 per trade. That plan also comes with the "gain / loss tracker". That shows you exactly how much you have put into every stock, what it current value is and what % you have won or lost. It is a very nice tool.
I agree with the Sharebuilder recomendations for small portfolios. Any investor can get eaten by trading costs, but none moreso than people with limited capital. You need to get a return to the stay in the game, and as the others have suggested you need to make systematic savings to make your portfolio larger.
Ahh Sharebuilder seems like the right way to go, the thing is, as I'm 15, I'd have to bug my mom to move the money, and she's as one woman bureaucratic system, so I'd have to wait a month min. for her to finally do it. Anyway, as atm i dont think that investing in stocks when the market seems at is a great idea, so I'll probably ask her anyway. the problem is atm that E*TRADE apparently hasnt even received the check yet, so I dont have the money there to move yet!
I suggest for getting her to move the money you do what I did. I wrote her out a check for 500 bucks and then made her go online and transfer the funds....another equally viable option is to find out her Account # and pin ;)
ok, i have to tell you guys about this in two words, and then i'll explain it. [b:9cd8f399b1]E*TRADE sucks[/b:9cd8f399b1] E*TRADE sucks, because I sent my money about 2 weeks ago (from france to the states), and I called to find out what the freak was going on. Soooo, they tell me that I couldnt buy because the market was closed. I'm like listen lady, I dont know much about the stock market, but I know it was open Friday. So, balblabla, i talk to someone else. They say its because my application is incomplete. Nothing is written for previous financial experience or something. Three things wrong with this: 1. Custodian account, wtf do you think? 2. How important is that anyway, I mean, they're not going to say NO whatever I tell them 3. Why didnt you call me? They tell me, that it was my job to be calling them eagerly every day to find out why my account was activated. Well, they're stupid people, and I'm sick of moaning about them, and your probably sick of the moaning. All I have to say, is E*TRADE sucks.
Thanks for the update. Are you planning on using them still?
yes, i think i am because I'm sick of waiting, and I'm gonna have to check in the contract to see if I can leave right away like that and take it all with me, anyway, for now i'm gonna invest and see how much it cuts into my profit (hopefully i'll make some lol). anyway, my account should be activated in a couple of days they say, but i should probably call to find out soon or else the same thing will happen.
Hey Spork, I know you are mad at how it started, but I think you should have an open mind. I think you'll love the E-Trade website once you start using it.
yea i just bought some stocks right now, and i like the system in portfolio... i'm not sure how it is on other sites, but here it tells me at how much i bought it, percentage its gone up in the day, since i bought it, money i've made (counting comission fees) and number of shares, etc... I was thinking I was gonna have to make an excel document for it but this thing basically does that for me :) i'm gonna keep it and give it a fair shot to see and all
Yeah, that interface is nice! Gives you a lot of nice features.
hopefully i'll have enough capital to put my eggs in different baskets without comission fees hurting me so much! and then i may just qualify for the streamer and for lower comission fees! maybe one day. edit: damn i'm so fickle. i've decided NOT to go with penny and to go with a strong stock that goes up and up continously: UNH. I just need recommendations for a good entry point? I'm thinking maybe it'll drop a couple of bucks soon? I dont really know how the market works yet as I'm new to all of this. Any suggestions or any explanations of how to figure that type of thing out on my own would be great!
First, I want to congratulate you on your intelligent decision to not get screwed on bogus penny stocks. UNH has a market cap of $139 billion dollars and the penny stock you quoted has a market cap of 0. I think your money would be safer in UNH. Anyway, on to the question. Generally you use the charts to determine your entry point. There are also a number of different tools you can use with your interface. Here's a [url=http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ta?s=UNH&t=1y&l=on&z=m&q=l&p=&a=m26-12-9&c=]UNH chart[/url] which gives you a good idea of how this stock moves. It pretty much moves UP, which is the direction we're looking for. It doesn't looks like there are too many dips to buy on. The Market Edge tool in my account rates it as a "BUY" right now because it's under accumulation by institutions. I say buy it now and hold. The change of UNH going from $60 to $100 is extremely likely in the next 12 months.
wow babeh i'm there
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