|
PREVIOUS THREADS Jan 2010 - Nov 2022 https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3259986 Oct 2007 - Jan 2010 https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2641737 What is this thread? This thread is for (hopefully intelligent) discussions of ways to make money in the financial markets that don't fall into the Long Term Investing Thread--daytrading, swing trading, stock picking, futures, commodities, credit, whatever. How about penny stocks, forex, and crypto? If you have something interesting to say about penny stocks or forex, go for it! Crypto, however, should be discussed in its more dedicated threads, of which you have several to choose from. Okay, great. What broker should I use? You have a lot of choices. In the US, the six biggest brokers are Fidelity, Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, E*Trade, Merrill Edge, and Interactive Brokers. What works for you depends on how often you trade, what you trade, and how what kind of resources you have available. Some goon thoughts on the brokers: Ally Invest
There are basically three types of accounts: cash, Reg T margin, and portfolio margin. Cash - You cannot borrow money to buy securities in this kind of account. If you intend to trade frequently on this kind of account you may also run afoul of freeriding rules and get your account suspended. Get a margin account. Reg T margin - With a margin account, you can buy securities using a loan from your broker for up to 50% of their purchase price. So, for example, if you fund an account with $10,000, you can immediately go out and buy up to $20,000 of SPY (or whatever). Beware, though: margin loans tend to be pretty expensive. As of November 2022, a $50,000 loan from Charles Schwab accrues interest at a 10.625% annual rate. TD Ameritrade is even worse at 11.75%. These are tough hurdles to clear, so use margin sparingly if you can help it. Another thing to be wary of is the Pattern Day Trader Rule. This is a FINRA rule basically created to protect you from yourself, and applies to those who execute four or more round trip day trades within five business days. The PDT rule says that, if you're a pattern day trader, you cannot day trade unless the equity in your account is $25,000 or over. So, bottom line here, between freeriding and the pattern day trader rule, if you intend to daytrade you should have, at an absolute minimum, $25,000 and a margin account. Portfolio margin - Portfolio margin is a relatively recent innovation, dating from 2007. If you have portfolio margin, your broker calculates your required margin based on the overall risk of your portfolio, taking into consideration offsetting positions and correlations. What this means is that your buying power can be MUCH greater under portfolio margin than Reg T margin. For example, let's say I think that tech will outperform the rest of the S&P 500, and I crudely express this view by buying $300,000 of QQQ and shorting $300,000 of SPY. Under Reg T margin, I'll need to have at least $300,000 available in my account to put the trade on (that being 50% of two $300k trades). Under portfolio margin I can put this trade on in a $100,000 account easily; SPY and QQQ are highly correlated (>0.9) and the odds of the overall long/short position blowing up quickly are very low, so your broker is more comfortable with the risk. Portfolio margin can be great if you do a lot of pair trades, option verticals, or merger arb. Minimum account size is at least $100k and not all brokers offer it. For more info, take a look at this more thorough writeup by SoFi. What are options and how do they work? That's not an easy question. You can go down the rabbit hole pretty far if you'd like to. But the basics are: the holder of the option has the right, but not the obligation, to buy a share at a certain price before a certain time (these are called call options) or sell a share at a certain price before a certain time (these are put options). And there are a LOT of different things you can do with those two basic building blocks. Investopedia has an introductory tutorial that is worth a read. Before you start trading these things, you should (in my opinion anyway) be able to know intuitively what view someone is expressing if they say they are long calls, short calls, long puts, or short puts. And if someone tells you they are long 100 shares of XYZ at $100 and wrote a $110 strike call expiring in two months for $4, you should be able to draw the payoff chart with that information. Be very careful with options. You've probably seen the screenshots of people turning $6,000 into a million bucks. People are much less likely to post the screenshots of blowing up their $80,000 accounts into big fat zeroes. Make sure you know what you're doing before diving in. Also, BurntCornMuffin posted a nice writeup that is a quick intro to options: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=4018317&perpage=40&pagenumber=42#post533541438 How do I know what to trade, when? There are hundreds of different strategies out there and what works today might not necessarily work tomorrow. You'll have to do your own research on this one. But if we speak very broadly, most ideas fall into one of these two categories: Technical Analysis - Human beings generally think and act alike, and when faced with certain situations tend to act similarly. Therefore, by examining the history of how a particular stock has traded in the past, we can predict how it will trade in the future. If you see a chart with 400 lines on it and references to various volume and strength indicators, it was likely made by a practitioner of technical analysis. It's a matter of dispute as to whether this works to provide positive risk-adjusted returns. In a market where any form of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis applies, it shouldn't. Fundamental Analysis - The markets are fickle, routinely pricing near-worthless companies as being worth billions or companies throwing off millions in cash flow as if they'll go bankrupt tomorrow. Therefore, by examining the underlying businesses and financial statements of public companies, we can find stocks that are under- or over-valued and buy or sell them accordingly. If you see people talking about price/earnings ratios, EV/EBITDA, book values, and the like, they're making an argument on the fundamentals. In the strongest version of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis, fundamental analysis doesn't really work either. It kind of sounds like you don't think I should be actively trading? Well, in comparison with just throwing all of your money in index funds, the odds are against you; it is difficult to consistently beat the markets as a whole, and it is extremely difficult to consistently beat the markets on a risk-adjusted basis. In terms of stress, learning new jargon, and time spent doing research, the average person is better off passively investing. But if you want to be a stock-picker or market-timer this is the thread for you. Is there a goon discord for this kind of thing? Yes. Feel free to stop by the unoffical BFC Discord, though note that it has not been endorsed by the forums, the mods, or even, necessarily, its users. Do you have a persistent source of tradeable alpha you can share? Definitely! One trade I keep putting on that's never missed is (POST TRUNCATED DUE TO LENGTH LIMIT) Agronox fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Jul 30, 2023 |
#
?
Nov 25, 2022 20:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 2, 2024 09:01 |
|
|
TRADING THREAD HALL OF FAME (also SHAME) Let's try something different with this thread. If there are any particularly great trades that get posted--or horrifically bad ones--I'll keep track of them here. Consider it the thread's version of bragging rights. To be included, please post a screenshot of you putting the trade on around the time you put it on, and also when you close it, in two separate unedited posts. (Otherwise the temptation is to only post winners long after the fact. We want to see how things develop in real time!)
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2022 20:43
|
|
|
(Reserved - Useful Online Resources and Book Recommendations)
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2022 20:43
|
|
|
Thread mascot:
Agronox fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Sep 1, 2023 |
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2022 20:43
|
|
|
Love that new thread smell  Can't wait to win or lose money mostly by accident in 2023!
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2022 20:50
|
|
|
Losing money already, nice.
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2022 20:55
|
|
|
Oooh a new thread. For future reference: Gold: $1755/oz BTC: $16500/coin 30yr: 3.75%
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2022 20:58
|
|
|
Yay! For memoriam: This thread opens at a time when the whole crypto ecosystem ate dirt and we're still not completely sure which big investing entities touched the poop too much and are having mighty issues that will affect other companies. Also for the last month the markets have been on crack (despite a lot of reasons not to), but this rally has started to exhaust itself. Lotsa people expecting the S&P 500 to rise at least to 4060 before we crash, while others are believing in a Santa Rally & Fed Pivot to drive markets to even higher highs. Personally I'm quite bearish and pretty sure that December will be a bloodbath - which will be continued in January and maybe hit so bad that European banks willget real issues. We'll see! SavageGentleman fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Nov 25, 2022 |
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2022 21:29
|
|
|
It's Thanksgiving 2022 and the market could be flat for the next 6 months, the economic reckoning could be underway, or we could get another delusional bull market as real world conditions continue to melt like a sand castle at the beach! Nobody actually has any clue! Fun! Good luck out there!
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2022 22:02
|
|
|
Hello future me, I hope we went up from here
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2022 22:19
|
|
|
Agronox posted:TRADING THREAD HALL OF FAME (also SHAME) I should post the amount of SOFI I have here — I’m an idiot. It’s never coming back, just waiting for next year to sell so I can tax offset some other income I am expecting. Should we track what $GOON is over the years?
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2022 01:07
|
|
|
movax posted:I should post the amount of SOFI I have here — I’m an idiot. It’s never coming back, just waiting for next year to sell so I can tax offset some other income I am expecting. I bought $GOON at $2.39...
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2022 01:41
|
|
|
For future people: over the last many years, from time to time the stock thread goes stupid over some random company that someone talks up and does very serious analysis on. We've done offshore oil platform servicing company (got hosed), chicken (ehhh), etc. and the most recent one has been NDRA, a company with an ultrasound technology for scanning livers that at one point had, I am not joking, six figures of goons' money invested. Like 250k or something. It has also gone into the toilet. We are referring to it as $GOON. The most recent financial report from NDRA was that they still hadn't submitted their revamped FDA approval request, and had less than two quarters of cash remaining, a situation which they described as excellent and exciting and good. But they have patents! Many of us have cost bases multiple times the current trading price. This is a lesson we all must learn, from time to time; don't buy meme stocks, even when the meme is coming from inside the building.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2022 03:05
|
|
|
Sometimes medical conferences save the most important discoveries for table 6!
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2022 15:25
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:This is a lesson we all must learn, from time to time; don't buy meme stocks, even when the meme is coming from inside the building. Let's note that many people who read or post in the stock thread did NOT participate in NDRA, SOFI, or other trash stocks. Some even posted against them. Hopefully this thread's iteration will prove a bit more resistant to trash stock mania now that the 2021 trash bubble has mostly passed.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2022 15:51
|
|
|
pmchem posted:Let's note that many people who read or post in the stock thread did NOT participate in NDRA, SOFI, or other trash stocks. Some even posted against them. Hopefully this thread's iteration will prove a bit more resistant to trash stock mania now that the 2021 trash bubble has mostly passed. It's more likely that we'll experience some new and exciting innovations in scams and rugpulls Can't wait for SPACs 2.0!
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2022 16:55
|
|
|
If we dont have a significant crash in December or January, my bear portfolio wit a lot of GS puts will become a significant liability.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2022 17:07
|
|
|
FistEnergy posted:It's more likely that we'll experience some new and exciting innovations in scams and rugpulls This thread was terrible during SPAC days. There were a couple of poster only posting about them and seemingly buying every new one they found about. Those posters have been very quiet since.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2022 17:38
|
|
|
John F Bennett posted:This thread was terrible during SPAC days. There were a couple of poster only posting about them and seemingly buying every new one they found about. Those posters have been very quiet since. That might have been me? I mostly posted about them in the SPAC thread I wrote, but I might have bled over. Sorry. If anyone followed me they should have made money though!
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2022 17:46
|
|
|
Where’s a decent place to get historic futures data via API or big file download? I’m interested in VIX and actual commodities
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2022 23:27
|
|
|
John F Bennett posted:This thread was terrible during SPAC days. There were a couple of poster only posting about them and seemingly buying every new one they found about. Those posters have been very quiet since. There are those that realized the music had stopped in February/March 2021 and those who are quiet and bagholding to this day.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2022 08:20
|
|
|
Pastrami posted:There are those that realized the music had stopped in February/March 2021 and those who are quiet and bagholding to this day. hey pastrami, wasn't there some sort of tastyworks options education video you thought would be good for this thread? could you please link?
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2022 15:30
|
|
|
Pastrami posted:There are those that realized the music had stopped in February/March 2021 and those who are quiet and bagholding to this day. There's actually still some money to be made in this garbage as the last bit of air flows out of the bubble. I have a SPAC trade that will resolve in about three weeks; will post the numbers once it's done. Nothing earth-shattering, more bunting for a base hit than swinging for the fences, but it should still be premium returns for the risk involved.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2022 18:58
|
|
|
It's not about the money you lost, but about the friends you made along the way. Stopped out on SOFI. I made money on the last pop and gave about half of it back on this trade. Oh well, on to the next. Thanks for making a new thread Agronox!
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2022 19:00
|
|
|
How about posting some wins? Picked up TRCH last year on my consolidation scanner. It had traded something like 100 million in a day without affecting the price. Rode it 3-11 and saved some for the dividend, which still hasn't paid out lol SPRT was a meme stock I got in early at 5 and rode it to 50 Biggest regret was DWAC I had at 11 on the explosive day and got scared so I sold at 20
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2022 00:17
|
|
|
cirus posted:How about posting some wins? Probably my nicest trade over the past year was a steel resources stock, Arch Resources (ARCH). Bought last October around $100 per share, sold at $150 a few weeks ago, and collected ~$15 in dividends along the way. Also had some decent luck with an oil refiner, Delek (DK), bought at $24 in April and sold at $30 in August. Not much else has been going great, though objectively I'm doing pretty well. In the previous thread I joked in June about hitting the big button in IBKR labeled "CLOSE ALL POSITIONS" but it absolutely would've been the right move to make.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2022 02:42
|
|
|
Agronox posted:TRADING THREAD HALL OF FAME (also SHAME) Agronox posted:There's actually still some money to be made in this garbage as the last bit of air flows out of the bubble. I have a SPAC trade that will resolve in about three weeks; will post the numbers once it's done. Nothing earth-shattering, more bunting for a base hit than swinging for the fences, but it should still be premium returns for the risk involved. SMH cirus posted:How about posting some wins? My greatest paper trade was a $9k of SPY $420 calls in March 2020 that turned into $3-400,0000 by expiry at the end of 2020, I think. I still regret not entering those as I saw the price going up. I had a few SPAC winners including Lucid, and PLTR (or maybe PLTR wasn't a SPAC), but for both of them I held my shares up to 3-400% gains and then sold the fraction of shares to cover the cost. In retrospect I probably should've completely exited, but oh well. MetaJew fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Nov 28, 2022 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2022 02:45
|
|
|
MetaJew posted:SMH This is far from a "Hall of Fame" trade, more like a "wow you beat comparable corporate bonds by 200 basis points, who cares," but fine... So if you zoom out a little bit, a post-separation, pre-merger SPAC share is basically a) a zero coupon bond, plus b) an overpriced option to buy shares in some lovely company. Let's ignore b), I don't want to own garbage de-SPACs. If you think of a SPAC share as that zero coupon bond, it matures at the earlier of the merger vote/redemption or the SPAC's liquidation. There are actually a LOT of SPACs approaching their liquidation dates. One of them I've been following for a while is Periphas Capital, PCPC. PCPC's liquidation date is December 14th. On October 21st, I started buying at 24.85. I could not be sure of what PCPC's eventual liquidation value would be. I knew it would be at least 25.00; going off of the SEC filings and current money market rates, I'd estimated that it'd be around 25.15 by December. PCPC announced a vote to amend their charter to extend their deadline for another nine months. Whatever, fine, I can redeem as part of that vote. As part of their proxy they stated their liquidation value would actually only be $25.10--it would've been higher but they stopped buying Treasurys to avoid the weird 1940 Act lawsuit issues from last year. I've been accumulating since and intend to redeem the shares at that 25.10 figure. This is money that for me would otherwise be in Treasurys or CDs. Depending on the exact date the money hits my account--IBKR doesn't promise anything but in the past it's been within three days--the IRR on this trade should be around 6.5% after fees and commissions. Again, that's nothing crazy. But it's two month liquid cash at a 6.5% rate. I'm not sure what the best comparison would be, maybe something like an A-rated corporate? I've never heard of a SPAC trust failing (and if anyone has seen one, please let me know) so this trade is very, very safe, and just requires some annoying legwork. I'll give exact return figures once it's done.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2022 03:36
|
|
|
I've had good success this year buying SPACs at or below NAV that are nearing deadline and waiting for them to vote to extend (which often results in additional money into the pot and a higher NAV) or a mass redemption that results in a short-term bump due to scarcity. It's nonsense but it's something I guess. I made money while a lot of the most popular tickers went down 20-40%.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2022 04:08
|
|
|
cirus posted:How about posting some wins? I bought into USO at $21 (adjusted for the 8:1 reverse split) when it bottomed out in April 2020. It's up to $67 now. I'm still holding and it is the only thing dulling the pain of buying NDRA at $1, ABML at $1.40, and NWARF (Norwegian Air) at $16.32. I was betting on a recovery for NWARF once the Covid restrictions cleared up in what I thought would be a couple months. I didn't expect Covid would continue to cripple the airlines for over a year after that.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2022 05:06
|
|
|
LLCoolJD posted:For future reference: Gallon of while milk: $4.41(ams.usda.gov) Gallon of regular gas: $3.65 (eia.gov) Gallon of diesel: $5.23 (eia.gov) https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/ https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/RetailMilkPrices.pdf
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2022 22:03
|
|
|
Hadlock posted:Gallon of while milk: $4.41(ams.usda.gov) Today I learned I have cheap milk and expensive gas.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2022 22:40
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/prometheusmacro/status/1596244377349017600 one of... many fintwit accounts I follow, this one is kind of interesting for the model market-timing portfolio in his linked (free) substack. currently: 52% BIL 21% GLD 7% CANE 6% SOYB 5% CPER 5% SLV 2% UNG marvelous backtests for his new strat, of course, but it will be curious to see how forward performance holds over coming months/years.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2022 00:26
|
|
|
Rail union(s) may strike starting Dec 9, and due to the fact that rail is inherently interconnected they won't interfere with the strike, in theory any cargo loaded in Chicago Dec 8 might not be unloaded (or even driven) in NY if Chicago were to strike Pretty much everyone is in agreement that an actual rail strike would be economically disastrous If I thought a potential rail strike might happen, or the threat of a rail strike might happen would impact stock prices, where would I be looking to buy puts
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2022 04:24
|
|
|
SPY puts would be just fine. looks like the Democrats will punch through a Senate strikebreak though, which makes perfect sense because they have been openly screwing workers for 30 years. I seriously doubt they'll allow the wheels of capitalism to slow.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2022 04:36
|
|
|
Hadlock posted:If I thought a potential rail strike might happen, or the threat of a rail strike might happen would impact stock prices, where would I be looking to buy puts Probably the industry most dependent on rail is thermal coal. Any other method of shipment outside of barge or ship is cost prohibitive. I'd imagine the IV on BTU puts (for example) would already reflect the strike danger, though.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2022 04:49
|
|
|
Hadlock posted:Gallon of while milk: $4.41(ams.usda.gov) drat gas is cheap in america
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2022 14:43
|
|
|
hot cocoa on the couch posted:drat gas is cheap in america Joe didn't empty out the SPR for nothing
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2022 00:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 2, 2024 09:01 |
|
|
SPR died so that house democrats could live
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2022 01:04
|
|