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Anyone here successful?

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I started with approx $2k, bought a few $500 parcels and signed up for their dividend reinvestment plans. For me it was a matter of needing something on the table in order to care enough to learn. Have I made money on these? Yes, but not much because they were quite safe blue chips. Just recently I've started dabbling a bit in smaller players and making much more in the way of profits.

I myself have never done a course, but then I am holding a long term view rather than actively trading. I bought a couple of good books, subscribed to magazines like Smart Investor, and read websites like The Bull and this one every day. There are plenty of free resources available, and you can learn so much by simply reading this site - I know I have

By starting out small you learn how the share market works, how you react to it (don't panic!) and, most importantly in my view, patience!

And, no, I cannot quit my day job
 
Successful by the fact I have a positive expectancy. Unsuccessful by the fact I still need to work full time and cannot afford a yacht with a helipad.
 
Boggo said:
This my Metastock ASX 300 system, the dip seems to be in line with the dip in the market for 2008 to 2009.

What does yours do after 2008 tech/a ?
Click to expand...

Boggo is your plot live trading or simulated?
It's pretty impressive.


Tech/a?
 
I traded a derivative of T/Trader (Similar but a little better than the one traded live for 5 yrs on "That other site") from 2002 to 2007 and its widley documented when I closed all out both here on ASF and elsewhere.

At the time Radge did say to me that I should keep trading it as it would in the longterm make new equity highs.
The $s at risk to me were too high so I pulled out.
I dont regret doing so but do acknowledge the experience of Nick who was/is right.

Not long after I closed out the system actually closed itself out of all trades.
It cannot be run live on Nicks site anymore (as he is licienced) and while its kept there as a reference I have fully intended to either start a blog for it or a forum with other interesting topics along the lines of system testing and design with technical analysis as the basis from novice to advanced. Evidently I can run it live without concern.
 
The forum sounds like a great idea. I'd be keen to see that happen.

That other site is often a bit thin on new topics.
 
Synergy said:
Boggo is your plot live trading or simulated?
It's pretty impressive.

Tech/a?
Click to expand...

That is a real account (SMSF) and is a backtest result of my Metastock system that is shown on numerous charts on here.
That test is done on the ASX300 but throughout most of that accounts' time it was utilising the whole market.

I run three accounts using that same system.

It $ value actually went higher than that by using derivatives (instalment warrants) but it does not account for a big hit when my broker at the time (TraderDealer) accounts were all frozen when Opes Prime fell over.
Between the market turning down, a couple of bad stocks and three warrants (one which expired) that I held during that period all up cost about $68,000.

That was the difficult bit, watching your account dropping three to five thousand a day and not being able to do anything about it.

In theory I should be able to outperform the backtest by eyeballing ideal setups such as the one below (stopped out this morning).

(click to expand)
 

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Synergy said:
The forum sounds like a great idea. I'd be keen to see that happen.

That other site is often a bit thin on new topics.
Click to expand...

If you think about it without the general topics and individual stock discussion ASF would be very quiet as well.

Running a site purely on tech analysis would be in my view very difficult.
Particularly with hard core issues.
Anyway work (Idea) in progress.
 
Not me.

I have been trading for about 4 months. First month went well. Dumb luck, it was, with Rio and SFR. since then every shares i have bought has been going down hill. I had 6k in 6 companies. sold 3, including Telstra.

people always say research, research, research, all i see are just words words words. anyway i started out with 6k, now down to 5k. lossing about $200 per companies. im still holding on to them, waiting to see the rainbow.

 
Back in 2006 during the mining boom I thew $10k at the market.

I had a simple strategy in that I only invested in speculative mining stocks or their options.

When a stock doubled I sold half got my money back and bought into another.

Net result after about 7 months I had a portfolio of 9 stocks that had cost me nothing and still had my original cash.

AUM, CQTO, THXO, CVIO, were the first 4. Some doubled in less than a month. My record was JMSO wich went from 2c to 22c in 1 week just before Christmas 2006.

I left Australia in 2007 and dumped the lot into a self managed pension fund. These stocks (most converted from options to stocks by then) crashed during the crisis but are now mainly heading back up again.

Still it doesn't always work check out the earlier posts on the OVR thread here on ASF, it will go to $1.76 I wrote and 3 years later it is 13c ..... oops.

So simple lesson, when it doubles sell half get your cash back and buy something else - that way over time you end up with a free portfolio - wouldn't that be nice.

EB
 
exberliner1 said:
So simple lesson, when it doubles sell half get your cash back and buy something else - that way over time you end up with a free portfolio - wouldn't that be nice.

EB
Click to expand...


Lesson should be about when you cut your losses not your winners.
 
OK .... but a lot of people seem to mees up profits too by either selling too early or even worse riding it up and all the way back down again.

If the underlying reason for buying a stock remains solid, resource, management etc and it falls why sell it can make sense to buy more and before someone writes losers average losers I know it is often wrong to do this.

My usual reason for selling something is because I lost faith in management's ability to deliver. I sold EXM and CDU at a loss for this reason.

Sure you could argue I was stupid to sell CDU at 2.48 as it is now around 4 but with the cash I freed up I bought SFR and AVBOB - 2 companies where I do believe in the management SFR up around 150% and AVBOB up around 200%.

I am not a big believer in stop losses as minor market swings have stopped me out of stocks I should have held in the past.

EB
 
Probably like alot of people on this forum I am very very new to investing/trading shares. I started off with $5k initially and invested in 2 companies. Saw some profits from that and thought this is an easy way to make money. Threw in another $15k to bring my own investment to $20k. This was in early September 2011. Sure, everyone has some good luck, but eventually bad decisions will come back to bite you.

In 6 weeks my portfolio stands at $30k. Alot of that is good luck (probably most of it). I'm still learning alot, and this forum is a great resource.

What I am having trouble with is sticking to my plan of selling if the share dips below 10% of cost price. I believe that in order to be succseful you need to have a proven plan and stick to it. A few times I have reluctantly sold at a 15% - 25% loss (hanging on to the dream of the SP suddenly gaining) I bought some NAB shares the other day believing I was doing the right thing by diversifying my portfolio (most of it is mining / exploration). Those NAB shares have now fallen almost 10% and again, I am reluctant to sell because I hate taking a loss!

For the more knowledgeable investors out there - I say thanks for taking the time to share that knowledge. Is there anywhere on this forum where I can follow someones actual trades on a day to day basis?
 
i've always found like anything you have to have a firm strategy and don't deviate from it. minimize your losses and enlarge your gains. use all tools at your disposal, fundamental and technical, trade the ups and the downs. be aggressive with your trading but also carefull. never overconfident.

many times fudamentals are great, chart is fantastic, all the research points to a buy, so you buy in at $1.74 next day for no reason. i mean no bad announcements, etc. it drops to $1.64. say you sell out cause you took a loss. thats not following your strategy. if all your research said buy, then buy was right, stay with it and this is the magic knowing for how long. but if it is a good company it is going to go up again. (majority of the time)

but in all honesty you seem to have had a bad run and spent too much on training programs. (another guy telling you what to do with your own cash.) get a job, start saving, find a strategy, start paper trading, and when your ready come back and own it.
 
slow_trader said:
In 6 weeks my portfolio stands at $30k. Alot of that is good luck (probably most of it). I'm still learning alot, and this forum is a great resource.
Click to expand...
Good for you in making a profit as a beginner.

What I am having trouble with is sticking to my plan. I believe that in order to be succseful you need to have a proven plan and stick to it.
Click to expand...
This is a comment that appears over and over again. Whilst I appreciate the principle, how have you proved the plan in the first place, and even the best plans may need modification in response to altered market and global conditions.

I may be quite misinterpreting what some people are doing, but I keep getting a picture of people with some poorly conceived plan which is failing to make them money, nonetheless saying doggedly to themselves, "I have to stick to my plan".
 
Julia said:
I may be quite misinterpreting what some people are doing, but I keep getting a picture of people with some poorly conceived plan which is failing to make them money, nonetheless saying doggedly to themselves, "I have to stick to my plan".
Click to expand...

Having a poorly conceived plan is a lot better than having no plan at all though. Unless it's a very risky plan, if you stick to it chances are you won't lose money too fast. Even bad plans will likely cut losses before they get out of hand. And if you do lose money following a plan, at least you have a chance to look at why you are doing so. With no plan, there's no chance to analyse your method so there's no real way to look for areas to improve.
 
slow_trader said:
For the more knowledgeable investors out there - I say thanks for taking the time to share that knowledge. Is there anywhere on this forum where I can follow someones actual trades on a day to day basis?
Click to expand...

First, don't follow someone else's plan, it may not suit your trading psychology or style. Know thyself (are you a scalper, day trader, buy and hold value investor etc.), understand your motivation for trading and goals (and what you expect to get from it other than money) and learn to accept the consequences of your trading decisions (it's not the markets responsibility to generate profits for you).

If you aspire to being a full time or frequent trader then perhaps you should consider Tate and Bedford's mentoring program. If you're a longer term value investor then read Roger Montgomery's book and blog.

Once you have a successful trading plan, stick to it and don't deviate. Stay humble, there are always new things to learn in trading. Good luck.
 
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