Investment BS Thread - Stocks/Futures/Mutual Funds/Bonds/Commodities/Options/ETFs/401ks/Etc

I feel bad for Powell. Every word he says (literally) will be analyzed and scrutinized. Did he say patience? Hold? Cut? Hike? Lamp? It's ridiculous lol

 

meant to reply to this earlier, I am taking the same approach at the moment. I have a good chunk of my 401k in a MM right now, and my monthly contributions are going towards the market. So if we go down, I'll be averaging down fairly easily. Then once we drop a good bit, I'll inject the MM cash into the market again. Right now though, don't feel comfortable parking all that money at the top. Had I entered the workforce and started retirement contributions in 2010 or so, things would be different, but for me, the timing was not right.

 

almost, the 2y/10y spread has been holding surprisingly steady on the edge of this cliff for a while now. Probably why they don't want to hike anymore. A rate cut though, isn't necessary at the moment IMO

 

Rate cut = markets rally

Powell is dovish and says no cut now, but possible cuts in the future = markets rally

Powell won’t go hawkish.

Either way IV his high. Wait until 2:05 to see the direction the Algo’s are going and make your play on momentum. Set a stop loss at a 1% loss and forget about it until EOD.

Play TVIX if the market is going down.

 

I’ve never seen the market so flat. I’m at 0.0% movement right now.

 

I’m at -0.16%

 

Didn't watch it live but I read no change with a willingness towards a future rate cut if necessary.

 

I think I saw that they said no cuts expected this year. That is what I was hoping to hear, no need to cut rates now.

 

Yep you are correct! Looks like they expect in 2020 but obviously so much can change between now and then.

 

Tsk tsk

 

This guy on TV is saying we need rate cuts because we want 3% growth instead of the 2% growth we're getting. Haha! What about when we need to cut to revive the economy in an actual recession, if we cut now there will be nothing to cut later, and it will be a whole lot worse. Not sure who the guy was, but he's on his way into the White House to talk to Trump. Good lord..

 

Question for all yall, which I am sure you have answered somewhere in the previous 193 pages of this thread: what is your preferred trading platform for stocks and ETFs? Anyone do high frequency automated API trading? Preferences for both manual and automated styles? I would appreciate your opinions.

 

I use Merrill Edge. If you trade, a balance of $50k gets you 30 free trades per month, $100k gets you 100 free trades per month. Not enough for a "trader" but better than what's offered by most platforms. I think Robinhood might be free to trade, not sure though.

 

I have been looking into Robinhood - it is free. Its also low volume. I have an IRA, my wife has a 401k - so this is for fun money, and will not be for retirement. What is the minimum amount you recommend starting with in your account? I know its easy to get crushed if I move low amounts frequently due to trading fees. Is there an ideal dollar amount you recommend to move per trade? Im coming from crypto, and I often run into issues where I'm trying to move more funds than the market is willing to buy or sell. For certain currencies, sometimes $100 can be difficult to move. I am under the impression that the stock market has so much volume that what ever I have to move can move fairly easily. Is this my ignorance speaking, or is there truth to this? Does Merrill Edge have an API?

 

I would recommend avoiding trading fees at all costs. A normal fee of $6.95 per trade wouldn’t make sense to pay unless your transaction is several thousand dollars and a long-term hold in my opinion. I’d go with whoever will give you free trades. I just suggested Merrill Edge because there is an option of free trades. I think Robinhood would work too. Sorry but I don’t know what an API is.

 

I've been using Robinhood. It is free to trade. I'm pretty skeptical by nature so I "round-tripped" $1K to make sure there were no "gotchas". That is to say I transferred $1000 from my bank to robinhood, bought stocks, sold stocks, and transferred $1000 back to my bank account and incurred no fees. I think I'll have to pay short term capital gains on about $5 though
Only catches I've found so far... if you transfer more than $1K, only $1K is immediately accessible to buy stocks. The rest takes about a week. I think the transfer back to my bank only took a couple of days.
It works for me. I'm not sure it would be good for day trading though... I think you have to put up $25K or buy a paid account if you want to use leverage or day trade. Be sure to research that a bit more if that's the direction you want to go.
Here's a referral link that I think will get us each a free stock.

https://freestock.robinhood.com/ericj1600

 

API stands for application program interface. Functionally, it allows two servers to talk to each other. I use mathematical models to predict the best buy in points, and I allow my server to automatically buy in at those points. This is accomplished through an API. This is almost mandatory in crypto because we can trade around the clock, and its amazing how far down some of these coins will dip in price when I'm asleep. Now, I never miss these ideal buy ins. My plan is to apply to same strategy to the stock market. I'm going to be at work all day. If suddenly a company like facebook tanks over the course of a weeks or two (like last year), I can use my computers at home to track the it and pull the trigger on when the models thinks the market has reached bottom. Imagine if you could go to work, and your computer identified mid-day on December 17th 2018, as the ideal buy-in time for FB, and then bought in. I have this working well for crypto.

Ive been playing around with Robinhood a little. They make their money off the interest in the accounts, so it is a true no-fee platform. Last night I did a little more digging into their API, and I think I can make it work. Basically, they don't have official API, but folks have been writing nice wrapper programs that allow programs to automatically trade accounts: https://github.com/anilshanbhag/RobinhoodShell Apparently there is no difference in the service for someone with low volume or high volume, so even though I utilize a high-frequency trading strategy (though I dont sell that often, I just buy in a lot), I shouldnt incur any fees or limitations.

 

I think euphoria is on the doorstep..

 

not for oil, supposedly Iran shot down a US drone (unconfirmed last time I checked)

Let's try this again lol