Investing General Discussion

Tmac

Tmac

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Sanrith Descartes said:
​
Maximize profits by staging buys, working orders, and getting the best price.​
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Control risk by always having pre-determined sell levels and stop-losses.​
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Okay, this is where I really struggle.

Once I buy, do I then stage my profit taking? Do I “wait and see”? Should I have a rule to “Always take profit at 50%, 100%, etc. gains?”

Should I always set a default stop loss at 12% after I buy? A stop loss would’ve saved me $3k in the IJS play. Should the stop loss be 100% of the investment? 33% of it? Different % at different stop losses?

How do I really tell what my play is?

For example, I’m long TSLA, but I just bought the bottom and have big gains. When do I take pride? It’ll inevitably fall again, so do I play it like I do BTC, where I stage my sell and buy levels based on the SMA’s? Or bc I’m long do I just buy the dip and ride the rest?

BTC is prob the only investment I plan for exits and reentries on bc I feel most comfortable reading the SMA’s. It feels “easier” taking profit at an ATH.

How many trades a year can I really do all that on? If I do stage all of this, I can probably only do a good job of managing 5-8 names. I can’t imagine doing this a lot.

I don’t think we talk very much about this side of the trade.
 
Sanrith Descartes

Sanrith Descartes

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Tmac said:
Okay, this is where I really struggle.

Once I buy, do I then stage my profit taking? Do I “wait and see”? Should I have a rule to “Always take profit at 50%, 100%, etc. gains?”

Should I always set a default stop loss at 12% after I buy? A stop loss would’ve saved me $3k in the IJS play. Should the stop loss be 100% of the investment? 33% of it? Different % at different stop losses?

How do I really tell what my play is?

For example, I’m long TSLA, but I just bought the bottom and have big gains. When do I take pride? It’ll inevitably fall again, so do I play it like I do BTC, where I stage my sell and buy levels based on the SMA’s? Or bc I’m long do I just buy the dip and ride the rest?

BTC is prob the only investment I plan for exits and reentries on bc I feel most comfortable reading the SMA’s. It feels “easier” taking profit at an ATH.

How many trades a year can I really do all that on? If I do stage all of this, I can probably only do a good job of managing 5-8 names. I can’t imagine doing this a lot.

I don’t think we talk very much about this side of the trade.
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It depends on why you bought the stock. If its a long term buy and hold then you dont worry about it. You buy it and keep it. If down the road it grows so much that it takes up a percentage of your overall portfolio that is too large, then you trim some down and bank those profits.

If you are buying it as a swing trade, then you should have some idea going in where you want to exit.

In general, as an investor (as opposed to a trader), buy companies you are looking to hold for years. The only time you consider selling is they either get too large or their business model fundamentally charges for the worse and you no longer see them as a long term investment.

To your example for TSLA, why did you buy it? If you bought it because its a stock that you felt was undervalued at the time and you feel its fairly valued now and don't see yourself holding it for years, then consider selling it. If you see the company as something to hold for years, then just sit back and enjoy. The answer to the question is really a function of the reason you bought the stock in the first place.
 
Blazin

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Tmac said:
Okay, this is where I really struggle.

Once I buy, do I then stage my profit taking? Do I “wait and see”? Should I have a rule to “Always take profit at 50%, 100%, etc. gains?”

Should I always set a default stop loss at 12% after I buy? A stop loss would’ve saved me $3k in the IJS play. Should the stop loss be 100% of the investment? 33% of it? Different % at different stop losses?

How do I really tell what my play is?

For example, I’m long TSLA, but I just bought the bottom and have big gains. When do I take pride? It’ll inevitably fall again, so do I play it like I do BTC, where I stage my sell and buy levels based on the SMA’s? Or bc I’m long do I just buy the dip and ride the rest?

BTC is prob the only investment I plan for exits and reentries on bc I feel most comfortable reading the SMA’s. It feels “easier” taking profit at an ATH.

How many trades a year can I really do all that on? If I do stage all of this, I can probably only do a good job of managing 5-8 names. I can’t imagine doing this a lot.

I don’t think we talk very much about this side of the trade.
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I can't figure out what type of investor/trader you are. That likely means you're being erratic. What are your goals? Why are you buying these names in the first place? I'm irked by your IJS loss, if you had said "I'm thinking of following you into this but if we have a scary a week, I'm going to sell." I would have told you just not to bother. It's not easy making money, it will try your patience and convictions. If you don't have a bedrock for how and why you make decisions then it will tear you up.

THe market knows you, it knows your inner most thoughts and if it sniffs out you lack conviction and direction it's going to win. It will make you sell at exactly the wrong moment. It will have you buy when you should have been more patient. The bars on the chart are manifestations of human emotion you are waging war with emotion and it's not an easy war to win.

There is one secret weapon against this that almost anybody can deploy if they find they don't like being in the break waters. Buy VOO and go do something else with your time.

Because this shit can be fun and people like doing it, then try this. Don't buy anything for a trade you aren't willing to sit on for a very long time. Start stacking the deck in your favor, the punishment of a bad trade should be time and opportunity not capital. Don't trade shit names , probably shouldn't trade individual names at all imo. At least until you are more hardened to these ideas from long periods of trading indexes. If you start feeling like you are risking "time" rather than money it might help with how you view the periods when an investment is red.
 
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Tmac

Tmac

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Blazin said:
I can't figure out what type of investor/trader you are. That likely means you're being erratic. What are your goals? Why are you buying these names in the first place? I'm irked by your IJS loss, if you had said "I'm thinking of following you into this but if we have a scary a week, I'm going to sell." I would have told you just not to bother. It's not easy making money, it will try your patience and convictions. If you don't have a bedrock for how and why you make decisions then it will tear you up.

THe market knows you, it knows your inner most thoughts and if it sniffs out you lack conviction and direction it's going to win. It will make you sell at exactly the wrong moment. It will have you buy when you should have been more patient. The bars on the chart are manifestations of human emotion you are waging war with emotion and it's not an easy war to win.

There is one secret weapon against this that almost anybody can deploy if they find they don't like being in the break waters. Buy VOO and go do something else with your time.

Because this shit can be fun and people like doing it, then try this. Don't buy anything for a trade you aren't willing to sit on for a very long time. Start stacking the deck in your favor, the punishment of a bad trade should be time and opportunity not capital. Don't trade shit names , probably shouldn't trade individual names at all imo. At least until you are more hardened to these ideas from long periods of trading indexes. If you start feeling like you are risking "time" rather than money it might help with how you view the periods when an investment is red.
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Heh, I probably lack an investing identity honestly. Four years ago I decided to jump in and start investing with the goal of “learning”. To that end I feel like I’m still doing that.

Ironically, my IJS loss (I didn’t sell the entire play, just 50% of it) was directly related to time. I felt like there were gains I was missing out on bc IJS was continuing to move sideways. But, I also didn’t have conviction to overcome the opportunity cost.

A portion of that money went into TSLA, so not necessarily a bad loss to take in that regard.

But, to your main point, I probably lean more towards value trading. I don’t have the attention span to be locked in on a short term basis beyond BTC.

I have a rather unsophisticated approach and treat stonks like I treat my software business. I don’t have an annual budget. Rather I live in the tension of where we are and where we want to be and just purchase/hire what we need when we can.

I look at stonks much the same way. I like TSLA as a company for its products and innovation. I like MSFT for the same reasons. Same with PLTR.

But, then there are plays like IJS that I don’t have any particular conviction about, rather I view it that a more experienced investor than myself is making it. I’d like to learn more about the why’s behind them, but don’t want to ask for an explanation every time I follow a trade. To me, atleast, lessons learned in blood are not soon forgotten. So time and loss, in that regard, are just as good a teacher.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

Sanrith Descartes

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Tmac said:
Heh, I probably lack an investing identity honestly. Four years ago I decided to jump in and start investing with the goal of “learning”. To that end I feel like I’m still doing that.

Ironically, my IJS loss (I didn’t sell the entire play, just 50% of it) was directly related to time. I felt like there were gains I was missing out on bc IJS was continuing to move sideways. But, I also didn’t have conviction to overcome the opportunity cost.

A portion of that money went into TSLA, so not necessarily a bad loss to take in that regard.

But, to your main point, I probably lean more towards value trading. I don’t have the attention span to be locked in on a short term basis beyond BTC.

I have a rather unsophisticated approach and treat stonks like I treat my software business. I don’t have an annual budget. Rather I live in the tension of where we are and where we want to be and just purchase/hire what we need when we can.

I look at stonks much the same way. I like TSLA as a company for its products and innovation. I like MSFT for the same reasons. Same with PLTR.

But, then there are plays like IJS that I don’t have any particular conviction about, rather I view it that a more experienced investor than myself is making it. I’d like to learn more about the why’s behind them, but don’t want to ask for an explanation every time I follow a trade. To me, atleast, lessons learned in blood are not soon forgotten. So time and loss, in that regard, are just as good a teacher.
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Try this approach. Ignore the stock market for a period of time. Spend this time compiling a list of companies you would like to own for the long term. You want to own companies you like/believe in. Owning a company that has a product/service or corporate philosophy you dont like will eventually lead you to sell it during a period of chop that you wouldn't sell a company you like. We all struggle with this to be honest. Its easy to put aside your convictions when a stock is putting up 20%+ return a year.

Once you have a list, the next step is to dig into the financials and see if they are high enough quality to be investments. Weed out the ones that aren't. If you need help with this post names in the thread.

Once you have a suitable candidate list, the next step is to analyze the market action on the stocks and evaluate entry points.

Now, after you have completed the above, is when you go back to the market and put your buy list into action. It may/will take time and patience waiting for good entry points. You just gotta wait and stalk the targets. Luckily you should be making about 5% interest on the cash while you wait for entries so its not totally dead money.

As blaz and others have preached, buy quality and hold it.
 
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Zog

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Can we just be honest here? Theres a lot of stocks on exchanges. 99% of them are irrelevant for the majority of the year.

There's a lot of seasonality and special "market events" throughout the year that requires an understanding of how this whole bullshit market works. Coined terms like "sell in may and go away", santa rallies, 401k contribution dates, rebalancing events. Some are literally just as simple as "outdoor shit is better in summer" and countless others that I haven't even experienced yet.

1714794749392.png


At the end of the day, the trend is up, it will always be up on a long enough time frame in the indices.

You can swing trade, you can day trade, you can be an options slingin pimp... but you're gonna get burned eventually. If you want to fuck around and try to time the market with moon phases, just do it with a very small portion of your account.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

Sanrith Descartes

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PLTR reported solid earnings. WSB crowd disappointed and the stock took a slide after hours.
Remained profitable and raised guidance. Commercial income surpassed US Govt income but lags slightly global Govt income.
I think this is now 5 consecutive profitable quarters in a row so it hits profit a couple years after going public and has sustained it.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

Sanrith Descartes

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Just a few of the proposals set forth by woke DEI communists trying to push their agenda through corporate America.

1715110712656.png
 
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Sanrith Descartes

Sanrith Descartes

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RIVN numbers. They tell a tale. A tale of we are going to be out of money in less than a year.

1715112919659.png
 
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Sanrith Descartes

Sanrith Descartes

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ToeMissile

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Sanrith Descartes said:
They could buy it for literally a billion or so dollars. Why "partnership"? Because they know its most likely going to hit bankruptcy at some point.
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I dunno, you worry about the details 😃

- Apple potentially still wants to get into automotive and have a fuck ton of cash. also seems to be a good overall culture/market/etc fit between the customer bases.
- Rivian seems to be the most likely new EV company to make it, current financial difficulties aside(reception/quality/etc of current models), making actual headway on closing their profitability gap(Q4?)
- R2 has a lot of potential if they can execute.
 
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Araysar

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Sanrith Descartes said:
They could buy it for literally a billion or so dollars. Why "partnership"? Because they know its most likely going to hit bankruptcy at some point.
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Partnership makes sense if neither party is entirely sure that they will end up with a final product that people will want. Apple has no experience in cars, Rivian has no experience in whatever they're hoping to get from Apple. Probably software, apps, whatever.

An acquisition here would be a colossal mistake.
 
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Khane

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I saw a Lucid Air on the road today. Looked pretty slick honestly. What does this have to do with anything being discussed?

Nothing. I just wanted to tell you all about my day.
 
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Foler

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Araysar said:
Partnership makes sense if neither party is entirely sure that they will end up with a final product that people will want. Apple has no experience in cars, Rivian has no experience in whatever they're hoping to get from Apple. Probably software, apps, whatever.

An acquisition here would be a colossal mistake.
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Bro…

Apple car project - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
 
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