F13 Investment Challenge

[UD_Delt]

Well apparently I don't know how to work the limit and stop orders any more. I thought I was putting in a target price for a sell but it just executed the trade at market value.

Ahh well, gave me a chance to implement my new strategy of buying a shit load of liquor.

[cmlancas]

Sky, if you have time to catass it up a bit at work, the best time to short is when the market opens really high (in fake stock market games) with a company that just had some bad news. For example, Citi opened really high today for the losses it posted yesterday. If you shorted at open, and covered toward the middle of the day, you'd have made $1 per share you owned.


However, some general tips I would give you for a short-term stock market games:

1) Blue-Chips are a bad idea. Generally, with a limit of $200,000, one can only purchase a fraction of the shares of a blue chip that one can purchase of a tech/med stock. For example: I can purchase six shares of THC (A medicinal company that posted a great gain today) for every one share of Dell. In the case of Google, I can purchase thirty-five shares of THC for one share of Google. Note that since we are day trading, for every equal cent that THC makes compared to Google, I am making thirty-five times as much money as you with the same money invested.

2) Penny stocks can bring big returns in the short run. This is pretty much the corollary that applies to the above statement. If I can get .10 on 50,000 shares at .50/share, it's worth a $5.00 gain on 1,000 shares at $100.00/share.

3) Short selling and then buying to cover is a great way to make big swings if you can CTV. Catassing to victory is definitely a key sometimes in the stock market gains. If you can find a good stock to short -- for example, if you were savvy enough to short JAVA (Sun Microsystems) today, you could have made big, big bucks. Short it on the decline, buy to cover, sell when it rebounds.

4) Most stocks generally resemble a sin/cos(x) graph. They all fluctuate. Take some big risks, and if they don't pay off immediately, just wait. For example, since I fucked up my Citigroup trade, I'm actually not looking so badly because I have held onto my stock. Granted, it would've been MUCH nicer to not get smoked for a $1,000 loss on day one, but the market usually rebounds. Except that one time, my sophomore year of high school, after 9/11.... Man, my stock market game sucked that year. (-35% over the entire game).


Note: Some of the math might be off, I'm too lazy to fix my posts.

[Sky]

I tried to make it back to dump my shorts (that sounds nasty) but I got caught up in a meeting and ended up losing a little bit on them. S'okay, I'm not playing to win, I'm playing to learn. :)

[Ookii]

cmlancas is kicking ass today.

Activision and Sony are tanking my picks.

Lawls, you and I are betting on making money this holiday season while the rest of these fuckers are daytrading so hard they've got second mortgages on their houses to fund their habits.

We will lose, but at least we can see what they did.

[Nebu]

I have quickly come to realize that I'm WAY too much of a chicken-shit to ever be a day trader with real money.  I actually feel more "in control" playing poker or blackjack in Vegas than I do with stocks.  Still... it is entertaining.  I'm going to bust the chops of a coupel of guys in the business school to see if they have some good tips. 

[Grand Design]

Lawls, you and I are betting on making money this holiday season while the rest of these fuckers are daytrading so hard they've got second mortgages on their houses to fund their habits.

You are correct, sir!  I also picked up some Hasbro for good measure.

GH3 has sold like hotcakes and I'm hoping to ride the coattails of that good news.

Not to mention CoD4.

THC (A medicinal company that posted a great gain today)

I snickered.

[cmlancas]

I snickered too at first when I purchased it, but damn, not even I guessed that it would be so 

[cmlancas]

Apologies for responding to my own post, but watch out for JAVA -- a 10% loss on a positive earnings report seems to me that this stock will see a tremendous upswing in the following weeks.


You heard it here first! 

Edit: LULZ @ DONKEY KONG!

[schild]

Read that article. What the hell does loyalty from EA, Activision, UBISoft, and Take-Two mean? They make their shit for every platform. This is why real news outlets doing gaming journalism FAIL also.

[Grand Design]

They've gone down the path with building expensive machines that they lose money on. They've gone down the path with games that are hard to develop.

Yes, developing software for leading-edge hardware is more difficult than rehashing software for yesterday's hardware.

By this man's logic, we should be perfecting the VHS tape and optimizing Windows 95.

Ya know, because new stuff is hard.

[cmlancas]

Don't check your game this morning unless you are shorting stuff. It's a nightmare.


 

[Miasma]

The U.S. dollar is falling so fast right now that if I had invested in American securities six weeks ago I'd be down 10% just from the exchange rate.  Oil is about to hit $100, not so much because the price has actually increased but because the dollar is down.  Crazy.

I'm worried something terrible is going to happen.

[Nebu]

I invested in oil, coal, and specialty chemicals this morning.  I figured that would be my best chance against the falling dollar.  I'm noticing that I was wrong.

[Ookii]

I invested in oil, coal, and specialty chemicals this morning.  I figured that would be my best chance against the falling dollar.  I'm noticing that I was wrong.

Is it good for investores of Oil if it tops 100 dollars a barrell?  Doesn't that mean there will be less Oil output, but then again I guess again demand would increase which would be good for Oil.

[Nebu]

Is it good for investores of Oil if it tops 100 dollars a barrell?  Doesn't that mean there will be less Oil output, but then again I guess again demand would increase which would be good for Oil.

There are many types of Oil industries.  Some include exploration and new findings.  I think those areas may get stronger as the price of oil increases.  Also, domestic oil producers as well as those in china could see an upswing in value as the middle east quagmire becomes messier.  I'm talking out my ass here, but looking at the trends there are quite a few oil producers/pipeline companies/prospectors that saw huge gains immediately after the $100 barrel announcement.

[cmlancas]

I think, and this is someone who really has no sources to back up his argument, that too many factors are influencing the American economy right now. For example, the mortgage securities going belly-up, sluggish big blue-chip (most notably GMAC today) stocks, the Fed not figuring out what the hell it wants to do....the list goes on.

[Nebu]

I think, and this is someone who really has no sources to back up his argument, that too many factors are influencing the American economy right now. For example, the mortgage securities going belly-up, sluggish big blue-chip (most notably GMAC today) stocks, the Fed not figuring out what the hell it wants to do....the list goes on.

Are you suggesting that the American economy is so complex that even Nobel Laureates are struggling to accurately predict the future?  Naw... 

[cmlancas]

I think I'm trying to say (and yes, I get your green) that there are more factors than normal. For example, credit industries have (compared to now!) been relatively stable.

[Sky]

Don't check your game this morning unless you are shorting stuff. It's a nightmare.

Yowza. Hey, how do I sell shorts anyway? I wish the help were a little better; just explaining all the terms in the drop-down menus would be a good start. I'd have sold my shorts earlier this am but I don't know how and I've already lost about $500 on them as they rebound slightly :(

[Nebu]

I have a hard time with the concept of selling short.  It just seems wrong to bet on a loser.  Well, I guess it's ok if you profit on it.

[Sky]

Now I keep getting errors when trying to Buy to Cover my shorts (finally found the right help page). Arg! 

Seems buggy today, getting lots of transaction errors, had none yesterday.

[hal]

The thing to remember about short sales is the amount that you could lose. If you buy long, and the stock tanks to 0 value. You could lose your investment. But that is all you could lose. On a short sale you will buy at market on the agreed on date no matter what the price. The amount you could lose is infinite.

[Krakrok]

I already forgot my password for it and their password request form errors. Fuck. 



Edit: Fixed. 261 shares into GOOG. I wanted to buy last Sunday which would have given me 281 shares at 710 but it wouldn't let me place a buy yet .

[Grand Design]

All but one of my ten stocks has now taken a turn to the red.

Stop selling, you bastards!!

[Sky]

The thing to remember about short sales is the amount that you could lose. If you buy long, and the stock tanks to 0 value. You could lose your investment. But that is all you could lose. On a short sale you will buy at market on the agreed on date no matter what the price. The amount you could lose is infinite.

It's not real money :) I stashed five or six hundred bucks in the bank on a quick short of Mattel. I would've made a grand or more if I had been able to time it correctly. I'm still holding Citi, hoping their troubles aren't over yet.

Missed Take-Two, that would've been a nice short if I could've got it before the GTA slip made the financial news rounds, I think it's off 72¢ today alone.

[Sky]

I'll take this moment to enjoy being at #2 with both columns in the green! :) I imagine I'll be trounced shortly enough....

[schild]

What's the password on this?

[Ookii]

f13stocks

It's on the first page.

[schild]

Ookii, I normally don't read strikethrough.

[Ookii]

Ookii, I normally don't read strikethrough.

Never too late to start!

[Grand Design]

Crikey.

Gratz Sky on being the only one who survived today's plunge.

Is there a virtual 40th floor window sill to jump from on the VSE?

[cmlancas]

It won't be so bad come next week, I think. The big banks will rebound sometime, just hopefully within our two months :)

[Phildo]

This sort of shit is why I had to take Money & Banking twice in college!

[Ookii]

What the hell happened to GOOG?  Bah.

[Viin]

It'll be back .. I hope.