EricDeLee's account talk

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Question of those out there that have worked trades...

i'll be starting my Roth IRA shortly. I'll be investing $2500 now, and another $2500 before the cutoff for the year.
My question is with trading and the costs.
If I choose to youse, say scotttrade and invest $1k in Coke, $1k in BSX, and $500 in Facebook. Will that count as three trades? Or is all one?

Likewise... If I log in and shuffle things around (sell off 25% of coke profits to buy twitter stock, sell all of BSX an reinvest it all towards bestBuy. Is that 4 transactions? $7 each move, or is it like a game of checkers and as long as I'm making jumps it's still counted as one move?
 
That sucks. I can see where you can rack up a coinage just making individual trades. Good to know though as I'll need to figure that into the cost factor.
 
It does take a very long time to build a considerable base in a Roth IRA - just be patient. Think about buying dividend paying stocks and automatically reinvest the dividend 4 times a year - that strategy will build pretty quickly.
 
Two more days for the trading year...
how will they go? I am hoping for a positive two days to start the new year off with a bang
 
EPS lists were released for the state today. I'm currently sitting #1 for my MOS and for 00F slots.
2014 looks to be the year I recieve my promotion! :)
 
I am still curious as to where I will end up. Being that I'm number one on the 00F list, I literally could be promoted into any type of MOS/unit. I worry about being a Senior NCO stuck in say an MP unit when I know nothing about MPs. I'm not too worried as I can adapt very well. But it's still nerve-racking!

with that said, I'd definitely be more comfortable getting a slot in my MOS. I can take care of troops better in that aspect being that I've been doing that for 18 years now. I guess it's all about diversification. I'll make myself diverse, just like my stock options! Lol
 
I was looking at JTH's fantastic new charts. His recent chart shows how overbought the market appears. To me, it looks as though it could technically stand for a 14.6% correction. With the recent 1% correction... I tend to wonder if we are heading for a rough January.

Here's my take in things. I think we had milder December than expected/anticipated. When you couple that with a slow start in January... It give one reason to pause. 2014 will be a tougher year to grab what the Autotracker Leaders got in 2013. I think 38% increase is a bit out of reach, and 25% will be a better top number.
Why? I'm new at this... But I do see a few key thjngs: one of the bigger things for less earnings: the Feds drawing back their buying. Slowly... But possibly at a faster rate that investors will care to see. The uncertain position of how much the Feds will scale back on QE, will cause big mood swings. I can see the market having triple digit losses right before the Feds make their announcements... And then a quick turn around where they have a nice day where everyone will see a 1% pop or something. Then... A bunch of days at .15% and similar numbers until the next big news day. That seems to be the big cycle. This year... I think the timing of the QE taper("QET effect".... I'll trademark that for now... Lol) will be who mrises to the top of the Auto Tracker and who goes towards the bottom.

So... What goals are you setting right now? BT is reaching beyond $1.5mil. I'm simply looking for another year of learning and applying the basics.

How will this year go?
My goals are to basically grab a humble 1.5% each month (average). Not too bad. 18% is what my goal is. Limit the losses, grab the gains. I'm basing a lot of this off of a simple two day knee-jerk reaction in Jan, but something still tells me 2014 won't be as easy. Then again.... That makes it better for me to learn new tricks. Something different than Buy and Hold. Lol

Jan:
i think I am going to wait till mid-week to see what the market does. My goal prior to Jan was to be all in on the first of the month, and then around mid-jan or so go to safety to try to time the week of bad earnings (that may be the third week of Jan historically. I'll have to double check). But then jump back in for the last week of Jan. The "almanac" basically states that Jan is the temperature gauge for the market. With that, I firmly believe that investors will refuse to allow Jan to be a bad month. They want the warm fuzzies that a good Jan can bring them. Otherwise the year could be choppier than expected.

Other thing to consider... Did we already have our Jan in Dec? Our Dec in Nov? Nov in Oct? And our Oct in Sep?
That worries me a bit. Are we technically a month ahead of schedule? Too get back on schedule, I am assuming be may have a blah Apr/May. Possibly a few good Summer months. Then a normal rotten September rather than the one we had. This year's Sept was Aug. August made us all doubters.

Thats my speculation for now
 
Fed's 3 Options For January Taper Of QE - Business Insider

i am assuming option #2 is the option the investors would prefer to see.
15% shows a faster pace that we really care for. 20% is the option that will have the market changing their shorts.

10% appears to be the answer that will respond with a Triple Digit day and make the investors very happy. It's the one that will push us to the end of Jan with either 1.5-2% gain. Just that week.

Am am I reading that right?
 
For my wife's defined contribution plan, I doubled what her highest annual return rate was since 2009. And I did that within 5 months. Not too bad I guess. Especially with a crappy August. My December rate of return sucked due to one allocation pulling a big fat loss of 12%. I thought it was an error, but I still don't know what happened. Can someone take a look and let me know?
take a gander:
ASVIX ASVIX Chart American Century Small Cap Value Inv Fund Chart
The day the price jumped off the cliff on me was 5-6 Dec. Price went from $10.90 a share to $9.43 a share.

Now, I know this happens from time to time. But was there an indicator of this happening? What could I look for?
This was offset though once I got a nearly $600 dividend from her DHLAX allocation. But just curious so I can learn a bit more.

Speaking of dividends. I ended up getting a few dividends from DHLAX throughout December. Roughly a week apart. One was bigger, but the others were nothing to sneeze at. I'm not seeing a dividend payout foe dhlax. Anyone dealt with them before?
 
Disregard needing DHLAX dividend info. I found that I got two dividends from them. One at .85 a share and another at .16 a share. That drip gave me an additional pop of 35+ shares. I like that!
 
I just took a look at all of my past TSP statements. The annuals and the quarterly ones. Amazing difference from when I actively managed things as opposed to letting things just sit there. You can tell and actually pinpoint where I turned the switch on and began to pay attention. What's funny (or sad.... Depending how you can look at it) is that the last two quarters combined are better returns than ANY yearly statement I've had. A lot of those yearly statements didn't even match one of those quarterly statements. Yikes! I wasted some years!
 
Decided to change my IFT. C Fund has disappointed me a bit. I was hoping for some gains there, while still having a bit of money in S and I funds. Changed it to have a stronger presence in S Fund, while also keeping a bit 10% in I Fund to capture gains that "should" keep coming throughout the year.

90% S Fund
10% I Fund

extra change going to buying silver. I bought about $500 in a variety of Silver in the past two months. I got some Morgans, some cheap liberty half dollars, Silver Eagles, rounds, etc.

crap.... I think I'm addicted. Lol
 
hello, my name is burrocrat and i'm a silveraholic.

plus, you can melt it down and reload your own ammo and take out zombies if it comes to that. or bite off a chunk and satisfy the troll under the bridge. or cover your eyes and pay the ferryman.

silver is versatile stuff, and it trades at a 25% discount off recent highs.
 
As I head off to bed this evening... Futures seems to look up. I'm hoping it keeps that trend for a good 9 solid days to have a good month here. I'm still up, but I still see potential for a little more in gains.

Also spent a good portion of time getting tax paperwork ready, and looking at different goals I wanted for this year. At first I thought I had perhaps set some goals too high. Then I figured that perhaps... They could be nudged up just a tad more. And that's what I'll be doing. By this time next year, I will be evaluating where I stand in my Roth account and where I stand with an individual account. ive been reading a lot about options lately. I love the "idea" of them, but I still love the whe DCA of owning a ton of stock and collecting dividends. Perhaps I can find that happy medium between the two. I can always hedge my stocks I suppose to protect them from losses. And make a few option trades along the way to bump earnings up a bit for the year.

Nice and slow... I still have a lot of reading to do first.

Keep eps your fingers crossed. Tomorrow may be a good day!
 
Stock Futures are up right now, I'm sure the ol' Netflix bump is a good contributor to that fact. Another good day or two would be nice. Up about 1.35% for the month, had a goal of 1.50% for the month. Still on track.
Mainly sticking at 90% S Fund and 10% I Fund. Plan: Keep pushing through the rest of the month, and I'll reevaluate my position after or around the 7th of Feb (job reports).

as always... I am assuming we'll see flat lines the day before the release of the job reports, and then possibly gains after the release. I think regardless of the numbers the tapering won't be increased all that much due to Jan's numbers. I guess we will have to wait to see.

Wife's contribution plan: doing pretty well there. Months ago (around early Fall) sent $5k through the brokerage offered through that company. Sent that all to BSX. 530+ shares... And months later cleared $2600 profit. Not shabby! Using TDAmeritrade's app, I've been playing with options. Puts, calls... Etc. On the papery trade portion everything I did with BSX ended in profits. The options "game" seems very interesting. Big learning curve though. If anyone wants a good site for basics... Go here and go through the modules: Using Technical Indicators
very good read. I wonder what the course cost is.

Things are still good. A little flat, but better than being in the red.
 
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