my first day of trading i made 100 dollars! not much but if i can do that everyday that will compound nicely.

I made over $100 trading today, too
I've lost $230 in a single day, as well.

Don't get overconfident, it'll come back and bite ya!

Congrats on the good start, though.

thank you thank you very much

So how much money are yall "playing" with?

....or if its to personal, just tell me to buzz off.

I was basing my reply off one account that has about $8K.
I do have a second brokerage account I wasn't including, too, but you can "buzz off" with how much is in that one

tj good luck with your trading. Is there a minumim number of shares required for purchase with a brokerage firm? Who do you use? Thanks,

acesfull

i'm playing with 4k...

I use Ameritrade, and have since something like '98. I've been happy with them. There is a minimum number of shares. 1
I have purchased 1 before, too
1 GOOG, and I actually made a profit on it after commissions. I try to purchase larger amounts now, though, because that small an amount makes it tough to beat the commissions ($10.99/trade for Ameritrade, which means the amount in the stock has to go up almost $22 to make any profit at all).

I have a friend who uses Scottrade and likes it. I think most of the discount online brokerages end up being about the same in the end.

after opening an account. How long before you can place your first trade?
acesfull

Ummmmm, I'll have to let someone else answer that one. As I mentioned, I opened it in '98, and not only do I not remember, but I doubt the policies are the same now.
When I transfer in money it's available for trading (but not withdrawl) by the next business day, but that's for an already established account.

Congrats on your first day.

Just a comment on Ameritrade vs Scottrade. I have both and have not used Scottrade for around 8 months now. It constantly froze up on me so I decided the $2 or $3 I was "saving" over Ameritrade wasn't worth that frustration.

YMMV I've never had that problem.

My friend has also said he's had that problem with Scottrade, but he still likes using them.
I sometimes have problems with loading charts in Ameritrade. I'm not sure any discount brokerage is going to be perfect. After all, they're discount for a reason, and you get what you pay for.

Kamek,
How's your second day going so far? Looks like a pretty good day for the market, so I hope your second day is going well!
Just don't get too addicted to $100 every day

If you're looking to save money on smaller size orders, take a look at MBTrading. They are more a traders broker than a discount broker but they are cheaper if you're doing small orders.

I've used them since 99 and Ameritrade/Datek since 96. For the past few years I access both accounts through Medved Quotetracker. It's a great program if you use multiple brokers and it's free if you have a MB account.

Not buying or selling, but im up $759.00 since this morning

Thanks, I started looking at them. The only concern I have is that it looks like you have to download their software to trade from? Is that true?
That's not great for me, because I can't install unapproved software at work (not that I'm trading from work ).

I was also thinking about switching to IB, but they say you have to have the experience of 100 trades to open an account and I'm not quite there yet (I'm at like 80).

Best individual swing trade - +21k in 4 days.

Worst individual swing trade - -36k in 2 days.(short that gapped bigtime overnight, a nightmare)

Most trades in 1 day - about 65 (dot-com bubble era, fulltime trader for several years)

It's been a few years since I've traded like that. My stomach couldn't take it or the 12-14 hour days anymore. Trading for a living is nothing like those stupid tv infomercials portray.

As far as I know, they don't offer any type of web-based trading. You could call orders in but that'd be kind of a hassle, although they do have a great trading desk, probably the best out there.

You can run trades through other software, like Medved and I used to use Realtick3 with them but in your situation that wouldn't help any.

How do they verify that? Do they verify that? All brokers ask those experience questions but I've never had them ask for proof.

I have no idea. I hit Start Application and it says
we require the following experience for all customers:
and has a couple bullet points, including 100 or more trades.

I didn't go any further through it since I didn't know if they'd ask for some sort of proof, or if agreeing to it would be some sort of fraud?
Maybe I'm just too innocent

I would imagine that's provable through statements provided by your other brokers.

2nd day is still good . i like ameritrade. i placed and order for a stock at 7.25 and i got it for 7.00! that same stock is up a point.

anybody have in good spec plays?

heh, i enjoy trading! its like chess to me.

I'd love to get started with this, but just don't know where to start.

Any good articles / websites to read?

Is it possible to start with like $1K? I have a good chunk more than that lying around, but that's all I feel comfortable messing with....

investopedia is a good resource. 1k is a nice some.

I use http://finance.yahoo.com for a lot of research. They also have an education section at http://finance.yahoo.com/education/begin_investing
I've also found some radio programs have a lot of good information. We have a local one here in Colorado that I listen to on my drive to work every morning. You might see what your AM stations have to offer.

1K is fine for getting started. Keep in mind that the less you have in an individual stock the harder it is to make back the commissions you spent, but putting more in a stock will put you at a higher risk because you're less diversified. I've made profits with as little as $300 in a stock, but it can be tough.

Ameritrade requires $2000 to open an account, unless it's an IRA which requires $1K. I think Scottrade only requires $500.

CargoJon, a great site to check out is http://www.chartpattern.com and http://www.investors.com. They are pretty good starting points.

TJGirl, I use MBTrading and if installing software at work is an issue like it is with my job, I just use remote desktop to access my home computer to make my trades. You may not be able to do that if you're home pc doesn't have XP or remote desktop enabled. And you probably can't use gotomypc either because you have to install it on your work pc.

Hope this helps.

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I picked up FORD, FUEL, and PEIX last week. I'm looking at ABLE for monday. I like to buy stock less than $10/share in my mad money account.

I did well with PAL (got in a under $4)

GE looks cheap to me.

ING was great to me last year.

"mad money account" heh. your a cramer guy? my whole pie is spec.

hearing good things about fuel and able...might think about buying. (need to do alittle more dd).

Luckily I sold half my FORD shares at a nice gain. The remaining shares are going to drop 40% in 5 minutes at the opening bell. On the bright side I did get into O2Diesel Corp (OTD) at a nice price.

166 dollars today...how about you guys?

$250.19 or 0.60%, up over $3,500 since 1/1/06.

Up $411.03 or 0.97 % for Friday
$3,919 YTD

Got 100 shares of Mastercard inc. (ma) at $43.62. Let's hope for a good run with the ipo.

I debated it, but decided to give it a couple days to see what it's going to do.

I'm glad I didn't go with Vonage's IPO
(VG)

Morningstar gives MA a fair value price of $80/share. I'll be long gone if it ever hits that high.

I have had great luck with Disney. We bought a few shares to hold for my 3 year old son on his birthday (instead of more unneeded toys - he did get some toys I am not that ruthless about our finances). Before the Pixar merge we bought some more. Now we will buy some more today because there is so much for Disney riding on the "Cars" Movie. It will be huge. If not my son still has 18+ years before he needs me to sell the stock for a "surprise" down payment on his house. Good luck trading.

I passed on MA but I am pulling for all who bought. There is still time to get in.

Looks to be a good day in premarket trading.

Speaking of Disney, their stock certificate looks pretty cool. http://www.oneshare.com/stock.asp?stock=disney# The real certificates make good collector items.

I love those single share websites. In my office I have a single share of each of my buy and hold stocks. Kind or a reminder everyday where the money needs to go.

My son now has a Disney share, a Marvel share, and a old Pixar share in his room. I am trying to fill his room by the time he is old enough to drive. Only 12 1/2 more years to go.

Did we hit the bottom? I hope so because I went all in yesterday with the following picks. MA, BOOM, OTD, and AVNR.

No.

I hope your wrong but I think my picks have a major upside even in a down market.

AVNR - Will have an FDA announcement about a new drug plus some big players have applied a major short squeeze to the stock over the past couple of weeks.

OTD - Just included in an alternative energy index plus it will follow the coat tails of the other ethanol IPO's.

BOOM- Very volitile but it should start moving up due to an upcoming earnings release.

MA - I think it really is under valued. It should also be added to indexes over the next several months.

-Mike

Made $950 today, woohoo !!!

did you REALIZED the gain or is it just on paper?

on paper my big mover today was SBUX, up $230.