Sunday, November 4, 2007

First Two Weeks

I have been invested in the stock market for 11 trading days now.
And I don't know where to start...

My first Sell: ANW @ 79.74 (-11%)
ANW took a nose dive on October 25th on the news that of when their earnings are going to be released. Being the beginner investor that I am, I freaked out and instantly wanted to sell. However, I held onto it for another two days. It went up...then back down. I sold it. Guess what! It goings back up again!

What I learned:
1) Calm the F#@K down
If your stock starts dropping, make sure it is for a legitimate reason and that the direction will continue. I lost a lot of money because I got emotional and didn't calm down and think about what was going on. The stock was a high growth stock, which means lots of volatility. In retrospect, I should have bought more.
2) Buy on Dips
I bought most of my stocks when they were right at their 52-week high. It is always a good idea to buy stocks making their 52-week highs because they are obviously growing. However, stocks usually pull back a couple of percentage every few days. These would be the best times to buy the stocks because you don't lose the initial 1-3%. This is not a big problem, but every percentage point helps.

Cramer's Recommendation: VIP + EXM
VIP: Cramer recently said to sell VIP. He did not say that he didn't like the stock he just said Russia is very risky and he believes it is too risky of a stock. I decided not to sell it, but i did put a limit order that would sell at a 7% gain.
EXM: The dry bulk shipping industry released that profit margins would go down. That day EXM went down 20% (I learned my lesson and didn't sell). Cramer had the CEO of a competitor on show and he said that the short to medium-term outlook looks positive, but he sill wasn't very positive. Cramer said he still likes the stocks, so I'm going to hang on to it and see what happens.

-Global Sources'(GSOL) stock has been acting weird lately so I placed a limit order of 10% on it.

If my stocks sell at their limits, here is my watch list.
Watch List:
GOOG (Google)
BIDU (Baidu.com)

What I have learned in investing so far.
Personal Investing Rules:
1) Sell offs DO NOT automatically equal bad stocks, but they usually DO equal buying opportunities.
2) Buying on dips = 1-3%

My current progress and holdings.
My Portfolio:
AAPL +9.13%
EXM -9.62%
GSOL +6.87% (10% Limit)
VIP +2.87% (7% Limit)
Overall: -1%