Hi VipharJust checked back in to this thread and my 2c worth...

Hi Viphar

Just checked back in to this thread and my 2c worth again - this post is as long as the last one...lol


First up, congratulations for making 65% (in just 7 months)!


I agree with Ipod, I think that sypaladin made an excellent post - thumbs up from me. Trading is a good business with low barriers to entry.


I agree with you that it is a shame that you were up at 30k and dropped that back to 13k - but to be honest with yourself I am sure you'd agree that relative to your wealth now versus in the future (you may well not miss the 17k loss so much in a couple of years time). You could well look back and say that the lesson learned (off of other people's money) has come cheap! Keep your chin up - you have done well.

Said differently, if you had continued to rise from 30k then you may just have just been winning off a boom - this may have then come with few lessons learned - it is the lessons which will place you in better stead when you are "playing" with bigger postfolio in the future


Kingpins post is very smart too IMO (thumbs up from me) and I was going to add this point myself from my own newbie experience - I too trade parcels of $10k-$20k (sometimes even $5k for fun with real penny dreadfuls) - for me largest (buy) trade has been just under 25k and largest sell has been 50k after accumulating (but that had been built up as net position of buying/selling 10k-20k parcels).
If you want bang for your buck then the penny stocks give great percentages. Given the % volatility - I will refer to Ipod's constant advise on the DT thread - "don't chase the price". I have missed trades because of this but it has saved me some losses too. Each time I have chased it feels like I have got in too late anyway and lost on those positions so no point in getting them in the first place.


Smaller point which may or may not be a big one to you - your spreadsheet is not immediately easy to follow - a quick suggestion would be to add a couple of blank rows so it reads better when reviewing your history to recall the trade - eg if you buy 10,000 shares and then sell that in 2 parcels (say, 7,000 and 3000 shares) - I would add a blank row below your buy order so when running down the sheet you can easily review each position and how you tracked with it. Like I said small point, but I do gain value every now and again by looking back at the trades and recalling "what could have been" in an attempt to learn from the gain/loss.


Lastly, the balance between my day job and watching the market is not always easy. Opportunities are forgone and avoidable mistakes are built in to the play - though as I said in my post from Sunday afternoon, I am still learning and for now happy to be making some money while gaining some great experience and enjoying what I am doing most of the time - this is something we are in the same boat with given your priority of commitments at Uni - your heads in the right place IMO.