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SHADOW & SNIETHER I've been trading for 5 years 1-Invested $500 traded a few pennys(none have made any money) 2-After several months of getting my trading legs as far as placing trades, I began to look for tools to help me. 3-About this time I rolled $10k from an IRA to MyDiscountBroker(now Ameritrade) 4-Two years later rolled $10k from a 401k 5-Last year another $7k from an inheritance. 6-I have 4 accounts at Ameritrade A.Standard(joint) B.Roth(wife) C.Roth( Me) D.IRA(wife And a standard(joint)account with local broker. THIS POST IS FOR THOSE WHO MAY HAVE STARTED IN PENNYS AND ARE LOOKING TO IMPROVE VIEWPOINT. VAN
[This message has been edited by VNGNTN1 (edited December 29, 2003).]
Posts: 1424 | From: Peoria, IL. USA | Registered: Oct 2003
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Van- I am new also. Been actually trading for only a few months. I search the boards, RB, HSM, Yahoo and here. If I see something I like I will check out the charts, candles, RSI, OBV, etc. as well as company news. I made good profit on PRVH, wish I had held. Holding LBTT amd MSITF, think they will be good long term. Bought into both at low levels. Lost on LSTA. Also holding ATNG. Hopeing it will run up.
Have looked at several TA sites that will let you enter charts paramenters and give you notices when a stock hits your set points, such as certain candle patterns, RSI , volume etc.. As of yet have not sighned up. I like reading your post and welcome any help/comments you have.
What board do you mainly use? And do you trade mostly peenies or Amex, Nas, or NYSE?
I have had a brokerage account for approximately 9 years. Mainly for my ESPP. I just started to trade pennies when I was told my office would be closing. I have an account with E*Trade and I have approximately $1000.00 to $1200.00 currently invested. I can not play with any more right now. I am hoping to start my own business when my office closes. My investment goal is to make enough on the pennies to help me open my business. If I can tag along on the lessons you give others, I would greatly appreciate it.
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TUCK I don't use boards, I do my own research that is what I hope this board will address FIRMBATCH If you are serious about pennys I doubt you will find anything here. Hoping this post will attract intrest in successful trading. Pennys are on the very lowest end of success.
Posts: 1424 | From: Peoria, IL. USA | Registered: Oct 2003
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I started by trying to find good companies falling on bad times. Picked up Lucent, AMD, BEAS on the down turn (not really knowing it was the down turn at the time) So I got lucky. My goal really isnt to make the money on the penny's but am trying to figure out the best way to double every 6 months. I realize that this is not a totally achievable goal. It is easier to turn $2K into 4K than 10K into 20K. When the money on the table looks small it is easier to gamble a bit. Once you start getting 10k+ then losses start seem greater.
I do like the potential of some penny stocks. I started buying ADZR from .02-.06 (average share price .025) It looked like a very good company with techology that would be picked up by larger companies. This has happened. I really believe ADZR will be a $1 stock in the future so I am holding tight. (Currently at .35 with 18K Shares).
Had some growing pains with SBLU(Q), CTKH, AFRR, MONIY, PACC, ... lost some money.
I also like the potential for LBTT and MDIR I think both have potential.
I plan to mix my portfolio up a bit between lower cost stocks and those on the big boards.
Hoping for steady gains with the NYSE and NASDAQ stocks and longer term plays on some of the penny's with potential.
I do not believe in the pump and dump. I want to find good companies with a solid plan.
My wife and I have about 60K across our retirement accounts. They have done OK but not super. Between the two of us with matching contributions we are putting away about 15K a year. We sort of got a later start in life. We both came from backgrounds that were (let say EXTREMELY) modest. So we do not want our children to ever go through what we did.
My current big pick is Qwest (Q) it is really looking good. I will be selling my SRAM and AMD stock on Friday to buy Qwest. It was just part of a big contract and all of the charts are positive. I really think this could be good for 20-50% over the next six months. Any thoughts on this.
15 months into my trading experience and only have a limited amount of time to spend on this, so trying to find the longer term good companies that I dont have to continuously monitor.
Shad
Posts: 172 | From: Virginia | Registered: Nov 2003
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SHADOW Thought you gave up but I know holidays are busy. Your responce sounds very much like my situation, Couple questions: WHO is controlling the IRA/401k ? WHERE did you get a "double every 6 mo ? In 5 years I am up about 37% and I feel that this is ahead of what I can do. My goal is 15%. Of course if you are over 65 I could see your need to double that quick, but that is suicide at a time when you would be rolling more and more money out to a fixed income strategy. I will look at Qwest today, but I have owned & sold and kept watching LU, will look at it also. Does your wife read this board ? VAN Took a look at LU & Q both are very similar companys, After you read this go to YAHOO/finance and check out 3 areas PROFILE KEY STATISTICS OPTIONS Pick one and lets discuss it ?
[This message has been edited by VNGNTN1 (edited January 02, 2004).]
Posts: 1424 | From: Peoria, IL. USA | Registered: Oct 2003
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My 401K is tied to my company so there is not many choices. Basically we get to choose groups of funds which track the indexes. So I have about 30% In Small Cap, 35% in Large Cap, 5% in Bonds, 10% International, 20% Fixed Income Mutual Funds.
My wife has a much broader choice with her 401K and her company. Most of her portfolio is about 40% company stock and the rest in AGG funds. She has done well and should do pretty good in 2004. 2005 will be another issue and we will look at being a bit more conservative towards the end of the year.
I'm in the mid/late 30's and trying to catch-up.
As far as doubling...
Started with a single $2,000 deposit to my Ameritrade account. Then began trading about 16 Months ago now. My current liquidation value is just under $16,000. My biggest gainer has been ADZR I have held this from the begining and accumulated when the stock fell to .022. So my average price was .025 the stock hit .46 on Friday.
I have been trying to double the value every 6 months of my portfolio. (Liquidation Value)
I now have a better handle on how to manage my portfolio. I am by no means an expert but realize I made some very stupid mistakes early on.
Our retirement accounts are growing slow and steady. So we will not touch these. The Original $2,000 that I invested to try out some techniques I had been working only represented about 5% of our nest egg. So this was fun money to learn with. If I turn it into 20K thats great... If I lose it... then I only lost 2K in my mind.
My goal now is to turn the 16K into 32K by the end of summer. This will be more difficult.
2004 is suposed to be a good year for the market. So I am going to try to take advantage. Once I hit the 20K mark then I will segment any additional gains into 5K chunks and start trying some techniques on the big boards.
I am not taking anything out. We are getting by without this money so my wife and I are committed to try to turn this into 50K by end of 2004.
With the recent success I am going to open a ROTH IRA with 2K and then see if I can match the previous success. Taking a more longer term approach. (Not so aggressive.)
I am also considering taking an additional 2K and starting another account to try a different approach. (Then I am really done.)
But we will see... I have not really lost any money yet so things might be going to my head a bit.
15% a year is very good. If I could do that across my entire portfolio (including retirment accounts) I would be very happy.
I will pull up the info requested and then we can discuss...
Shad
Posts: 172 | From: Virginia | Registered: Nov 2003
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Profiles of Lucent (LU) and Qwest (Q) The companies are similar in size, number of employees, both in the telecommunications business...
There is a key difference. Lucent is in the infrastructure business and Qwest actually provides local voice and data services. So Qwest is a service provider to the public where as Lucent provides equipment to enable a company like Qwest to provide the service.
In the 90's most Telecommunications companies upgraded their infrastructures at the costs of billions of dollars. What they found was that most actually jumped normal evolutionary cycles to the latest technology. So now everyone had the bandwidth but they did not have the customers or services. Companies will evolve services in the future but will not replace their infrastructure the way they did in the 90's.
The best bet in todays market is the Service provider not the Equipment provider. Also, I would look to Telecommnications companies that are going Broadband Wireless and Packetized... Qwest will do well in the near term 2-5 years. But I would be looking at the future.
On the surface it looks like Lucent is the better pick. I really think it comes down to the profit margin LU negative -9% Qwest .79% Operating Margin LU -2.62% Qwest 1.42%
LU Revenue 8.47B per share 2.144 Q Revenue 15.38B per share 8.43 (that is twice the current price)
LU Gross Profit 2.65B Q Gross Profit 9.42B
LU hase more than 2x the number of shares as Qwest.
Qwest has almost 60% Institutional Ownership with Higher rate of internal ownership. LU has about 35% Inst with less that 1/2 a percent of internal ownership.
Key Point ****
Lucent Operations and Free Cashflow are both negative and both at the $ Billion mark.
Qwest has 2.84B from Operations and Positive free cashflow of $170M.
So to me Qwest looks the best.
Once I sell my AMD and SRAM I plan to buy Qwest and am hoping for a 20-30% Gain before selling.
Posts: 172 | From: Virginia | Registered: Nov 2003
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SHADOW Good comparison between companys and I believe Q is also better. I do not hold and won't buy this. They have a huge debt 3 times MktCap" which shows up in BV. Also ROA & ROE are both ttm not mrq I would expect to see these change downward. I suppose 200-500 shares would be ok, but I would watch closely for a change in these numbers we are talking about especially if the Institutional drops 5-7% VAN
Posts: 1424 | From: Peoria, IL. USA | Registered: Oct 2003
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