Thoughts on a day

Since the initial purpose of the race is to go from $5,000 to $100,000 (or more), it would make sense that I’m trying to make money. Every trader is trying to make money, so it’s no surprise that I am trying to do the same thing here. The biggest difference on this site is that I show everything every step of the way, making Retard Trader unique.

Here is a unique post where I unintentionally try to show you that I’m a Retard Trader.

I know that the quickest way to make money with a limited amount of money (under $25k) in a trading account is through either futures or options. Buying and selling stock is great and usually an easier and safer way to make money, but when you have only $5k in an account you aren’t going to be buying and selling 12,622 shares on average for a profit of $.06 each (and if you removed the highest and lowest you would get an avg of 12,971 shares at a profit of $.034 per share). What you don’t see in those numbers is that some of the stocks are $20 a share, some $50 or $100 or more, which would require moving over $300,000 worth of stock in a day.

Using a $5k account, trying to reach an average profit of $449 by trading stock is really, really difficult. That’s trying to make nearly 10% profit based on your whole account value, which might occur on occasion but usually pretty rare when dealing with single shares of stock. Actually, it’s pretty difficult to impossible.

Before someone brings up the psychic detective of investing, there are a lot of questions I have about his account, but since he’s not really sharing everything that’s going on and only enough to try to lure suckers to buy his book and DVD and whatever other subscription system he’ll start next, I’ll just assume he had another Bar Mitzvah and is using that money for some of his shorts and margin capabilities.

So without the advanced knowledge of insider information, making large profits through stock trading isn’t likely to happen with consistency using the $5k account. That’s the main reason that I’m trading options.

And as any of you have seen, I’m not a skilled options trader. I’m not a skilled trader of any kind. I’m not even a stock trader. My profession has nothing to do with stocks or the stock market. The company I work for is not publicly traded and has nothing to do with the stock market. I’m probably the last person that should be trading stock or options or futures. I’m slow to learn, obviously, as you can see from my account. Butt But I’m willing to take a chance and show anyone what I’m doing while I’m doing it.

Usually I don’t have much more of a basis for a trade besides thinking I think it might go in some direction. I’ve used a coin to determine if I should buy calls or puts. And though that’s not likely to succeed more often than a knowledgable trader’s decision making process, it does have a 50% chance of turning out correct.

Today I’m going to tell you something new about me and another stock market technique I use for trying to make money.

About me first, I like to entertain myself. I do enjoy entertaining others as well, but doing this blog is more about myself than you. Sorry about that. Please don’t take that the wrong way, I still care about your entertainment and will prove it to you… there will be something for you later today. If you follow this blog then you will know what this picture means and if you don’t, you soon will:

Now, here’s a little about my thinking process.

I check some news and blog sites, but usually only read the article titles unless they capture my attention. Here are just some of the places I visit: IBD, Between the Hedges, WSJ, Yahoo Finance, Slope of Hope, and there are others. I’ll be expanding the Retard Trader links page often. Another one of the places I visit is Earnings.com, which is where I look for stocks that might be making some radical movements soon.

Looking at Earnings.com today I see that there is potential excitement in the following: BONT, DKS, GOT, JCG, PNY, & KR.

Even though there are other companies reporting, those are my potential targets for my non-commonly traded companies. Of course, I will be watching JCP as it should be up today. That’s right, I will be looking for calls today! Watch for me to grab something that is slightly OTM (out of the money) in hopes of getting a higher percentage return because of the extrinsic value.

Sorry if this post is boring to some of you. I was asked to write up a little something from a repeat offender reader to this blog.