The HL Investment Challenge

[Tech Geek Deluxe]

To be honest with you ... investing in stocks without real research is worse than Roulette as far as odds.

Real research takes incredible amounts of time and effort and needs to be perfect in scope from the research to fundamentals and technicals.

I simply invested based on pure numbers because I don't have the hundreds of hours to properly research. The P/E ratio of 6 and dividends for my pick will produce a profit ... if the market rises ... there will be very strong profits.

Not sure if quarterly dividends show up in this game however.

If so ... the earnings will produce roughly a 17% per anum gain for your investment on a static stock price of $7

[Reloadron]

Originally Posted by wtcnbrwndo4u

OK, so I just invested 1000 shares into Circuit City, 100 into Intel, and 500 into AMD... haha, let's see how this goes.

Pretty heavy into the tech sector. Should be interesting.

Ron

[wtcnbrwndo4u]

Originally Posted by Reloadron

Pretty heavy into the tech sector. Should be interesting.

Ron

True, but I also invested 1000 shares into a failing retail chain... Haha. I put it in there because I work there... But the stock has been rising gradually... I'll keep it in for a bit and sell off the shares. :)

[Quakindude]

Aight. I'm in there now myself. Diversified of course.

[oldman_gamer]

Originally Posted by RAID

damn the transaction waiting period! i was actually going to make a nice profit when i sold but by the time it went thru, it fell. then my other stocks sucked.... oh well

Agreed...the trading time lost me 2 to 3$ /share on one stock I was ahead in this AM.That makes for tuff trading when you sell at what you think is a good profit,till you see it down during the waiting period.
It's a fun learning expirience....all that matters.If it were real $...I do think I would be with a professional investor...Schwab etc..

[Sumgai]

Well, I'm in. Bought a few shares in a few different industries...should be interesting. You picked a heck of a time in our economy to start this ball of wax Ron

[Tech Geek Deluxe]

Professional investor/brokers often do not help ... unless they have a proven track record and you give them moderate authority to execute trades for you. Most haven't much more a clue than you ... except some training ... the best ones are ones who have become independently wealthy with successful trade styles and simply work to get the work perks and help others and maximize some leverage with money Mgt.

When you buy a stock from a brokerage, they in turn buy it from a Market Maker, who in turn buys it from a central clearing firm.

Perhaps the best is to have 2 to 3 100K accounts and have them at different "Market Makers." Having a market maker account allows you to buy off the bid versus the ask with whatever your trade fees are. The fatter your account ... the lower your trade costs. With a 100K account ... you would be able to get a 1% trade cost. Half Mil accounts with a lot of activity could see 1/2 % or a squidge better.

That 1% adds up very fast ... but the advantages are that you get super super fast executions and get to buy off the "Bid" verus at the "ask" ... so you can accumulate positions very aggressively. [If you are a professional trader ... the 1% is cheap for what it gets you.] Your monthly trade costs on $300K for an active day trader could easily be 3K-5K a month however.

The benefits of having multiple MM acts is that you are "Friendly" to whichever MM you have the acct at ... so they will tell you things about if they have big players going against you in house on trades. [E.G ... if you are buying and some much larger player is shorting ... they will discourage you from doing it ... however if they don't tell you ... you can see the executions on page 2 level 2 of your Buy-Sell sheet in your real time ticker feed.

The reason for 3 ... is if they front run you ... you can shake them off by using the other accts to keep them from dumping orders in front of your executions. Even though Market Makers [MM's] are essentially legalized wealthy bookies ... they don' often "front run" and certainly not near as often as regular brokerage houses.

BTW- You don't get front run if you don't have an excellent trade record.

_________________________
If people really desire to do well in the market, they must establish disciplines for their trading style.

Unless you are a technical only trader ... you must do significant research on the companies that you invest in and also research fundamentals that may also affect the stock.

[Reloadron]

We actually now have 24 people in the game. Really good! I wasn't sure how well this would take off.

We shall see what Friday does following a pretty down Thursday.

Tech Geek, lets give them time and remember it is a game. I strongly agree with everything you have posted but people who do this for as living and are really good as you mention place countless hours of study into things. If the members want to better understand PE or Quarterly Reports Google is their friend.

(DISCLAIMER) This is a game, don't try this at home with real money! (/DISCLAIMER)

Ron

[oldman_gamer]

Here's site link if anyone wants to use it.NYSE list of symbols and how they are doing and other info they may be useful or not.
List of Symbols for New York Stock Exchange
Good luck today!

[Quakindude]

If you have stock in Bear Stearns, and in RL, I did, you might want to unload it if you aren't in for the long haul.