Tag Archives: stocks

I think TradeMonster might be the right answer

September 21, 2010

After spending quite a while looking at different online brokers, I think TradeMonster might be the one I’ll choose. Its commissions ($7.50/trade) are higher than TradeKing and Zecco (and barely higher than Scottrade), but I pay a lot less in commission every year than I do in margin interest. Trademonster’s margin interest rate is super-low, around 3.5% for $0-50,000. This will save me hundreds and hundreds of dollars per year over Scottrade. The cost in commissions will be a bit, [...]

Thoughts on Zecco

September 21, 2010

So, Zecco works OK, but there could be some major improvements to it. 1. Stock quotes in different tabs interfere with eachother. You’ll be reading about ADBE in one tab, and click to change the stock chart, and all of a sudden you’ll be looking at the chart for MSFT but it will still say ADBE at the top! This is really horrid, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to switch because of it. 2. The charting settings don’t seem [...]

Zecco: $0 Stock Trades! Too good to be true!?

September 17, 2010

Zecco is my new favorite discount brokerage. They offer $4.50 trades for stocks and options, as well as $0 trades if you execute more than 25 trades a month or have more than $25,000 in your account. This is huge, as it basically eliminates a big part of the cost of personal investing. I highly recommend switching from whichever brokerage you’re using now. They have a really nice user community interface that allows you to see what other users are [...]

Selling Covered Calls

September 2, 2010

I never really thought about it, but a good strategy would be to sell out of the money puts at your loss point depending on if you’re bullish on a stock. I always tell myself I should set stop loss orders at -5% on all my stock purchases, but I never do, and it ends up hurting my portfolio. This way, I could make some extra cash immediately from selling the contract, and the worst case is I have to [...]

A little options strategy

August 30, 2010

The story I got burned by options a couple years ago, and have stayed away ever since. But in the last few days, I’ve been learning how to manage risk using options, especially by using spreads. I decided to try out some spreads today in my optionshouse practice account. WARNING: If you are not familiar with options, the next part is going to be gibberish. Use Google to find a good resource on educating yourself about options if you are [...]

Some stock picks…

August 27, 2010

Here’s some little stock analyses I did today using QTStalker. Google Fibo 50% and upward trendline should help this go up a bit, assuming Android continues to get market share. Atwood Oceanic These guys are in a lateral channel between the 61.8 and the 38.2 Fibo lines. Buying around $25 looks like a win. Cintas This looks good – a bounce off the 38.2 at the same time as a bounce off the uptrend. Also, the RSI is getting back [...]

Protectionism and Buying American

August 24, 2008

I have recently been reading Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt, and in Chapter 11, Section 2, I found an interesting analysis of tariffs and how they actually hurt everyone except the special interest producer. In his hypothetical example, the consumers pay more for the products, there is less export of American currency to foreign countries, and therefore less export from America, and he even goes on in the following sections about wages decreasing as an effect of tariffs. [...]

Tax the rich

November 1, 2007

It’s time to raise the taxes on the rich in this country. I can’t believe that Warren Buffett only pays 17.7% on his $46 million. Why am I stuck paying 20-30%? That’s stupid. I hope the next president realizes this and fights to lower taxes drastically for anyone making sub-upper-level-executive salaries. I started trading options about a week ago, and made a little profit on Boeing. Redhat started taking off today, and I might buy a call on that. Watch [...]

Redhat looks exciting

October 8, 2007

It looks like Redhat is about to rally Stock up if it goes past $21! It could really zoom. The support is built up long term. I signed up for an options account with Scottrade today. It will allow me to: Buy puts and calls to open Write covered calls It’s too bad they don’t offer naked put writing and selling to close. I would have liked to play the game of just trading pure options without ever exercising them.

NKTR for the win!

October 6, 2007

After looking through hundreds of stocks, I think I might check this one out: It looks technically promising. We’ll see how that turns out.

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