A few things have been really good this week, and really bad. First off, the bad.
The stock market really sucked this week and some of the plays I wanted to make didn’t go the way I wanted. I played a lot with ETFs and I definitely learned a lot. I was sick with the flu for several days so about the only thing I could do was watch stocks.
The ETFs are difficult simply because you don’t know which direction the price of the underlying commodity is going to go. After losing some this week, I definitely think these are day trades only unless you have strong indicators of the price going up or down overnight. Gold was good this week, but I sold at the wrong times because I was trying to swing and hold for days. There were several opportunities to sell at a 16%+ gain. For example, with $DRIP I had the opportunity to sell on Friday afternoon after buying at a great price morning when it was going up. I could have easily sold at $19 and made my 3% for the day. But, no, it went way down Monday and I held until it went up a little Tuesday. Still a 12% loss which is huge.
You’ll notice I didn’t have that big of a loss the rest of the week and I had trade fees. After losing $107 in Robinhood because of no day trades left, I began switching to Ustockstrade so I wouldn’t get stuck again!
Here’s my trade history and notes for the week:
The end of day momentum picks have worked out fairly well. I had money tied up in ETFs so I didn’t get to play them as much but that’s the strategy I’m going back to. If I can watch the market during the day I can play oil, natural gas, and gold again each other and grab a few extra bucks. But being back to work will not let me do that.My biggest losses were in ETFs and completely avoidable. I have learned my lesson.
The BIGGEST gain I completely missed because I was tied up in ETFs was $FOSL. Oh my goodness did I miss an opportunity to double my portfolio! And I was alerted to it. This is my biggest loss for the week.
Now $CNET was my bad… I got impatient and totally missed the upward movement, which happened in the after lunch time rush.
So here’s the major take-aways from the week:
- ETFs are mostly day trades, not long term swings
- Use Ustocktrade so I don’t get stuck in a stock
- Stay as liquid as possible at the end of the day so I can grab the good overnight holds (like $FOSL)
You can make money in a bad market, the ETFs are really good for that. Just have to play them smarter.
That puts my gain/loss total for the month of February at: -$245.99. I’ve got a long ways to go.
That was my trading week! If you have any comments put them below, would love to hear how you did or if you made any of the same trades.
stocks mentioned in this post: [post_tags]
