sorry jp, didnt see the question til just now...mmm. I'm not all that systematic, probably been lucky-sortof, so far. I sit on cash more than I buy. never been fully invested yet in either the brokerage or the Roth-because of that very problem! I want to buy buy buy! My eyes are big, my list of maybes are many, notes on when and why are many, my cash is limited. :laugh: So I sit and read and try to decide what next. but I figure better to land one good punch than to make lots of little ineffective ones-they would burn through my $ in commissions too fast.
I read read read, try to identify themes, trends in certain sectors and then zero in from there. I look at the fundamentals pretty hard-sector, then main holdings (if an etf), if its a stock I look for value and prospects mainly-p/b, p/sales, PEG, volume, what are they up to that would add value or growth or both. so there I look at screens, profiles in BarCharts, BigCharts, Seeking Alpha articles, yadda yadda.
One thing I believe I need to go back to practicing, something I was doing earlier-is cut my losses quick. don't hold on in hopes of a turn around. theres' always another day. I've been breaking that rule since I rode BP down and bailed at the bottom last year. I'm hurting with the buys I made this year.
Lots of Seeking Alpha website reading especially, for specific ideas, sector trends. once I get a sector/trend idea, I get a group of prospects and compare them to each other on fundamentals. once I get an idea (ETF, stock) I research it even more-with BarCharts and Big Charts.com data-fundamentals, and then watch the charts to look for good entry point. does that sound systematic? Sometimes being indecisive pays off-by the time I build my confidence, I have something pretty solid that I think I can hang onto for a year or more for longterm cap gains.
But I was doing better when I was buying small-10-20 shares. country ETF themes-(non-euro), commodity etfs and mainstream energy stock. BP was really nice for the dividends AND growth in 09 into early 2010-until I went into denial the week the oilrig blew up-intuition told me to get out NOW! but my head resolved to stay cool and calm and wait for it to blow over-I eventually bailed at a pretty good loss.
this year I bumped up to 50-100 shares per stock/etf, mostly still in the energy sector currently.
Decided I was brave enough to try out a penny energy stock (oy!-its one developing patents around battery energy storage-its dying as I speak), a spec Canadian light-crude oil producer stock (they've got a real operation but it was a pump and dump-I watched it go up about 3x then was dumb enough not to get out when it started sliding-don't want to say where its at now, they're burning through their cash like nobody's business), and a couple energy ETFs the timing was p-poor on. thought I was ready to be a big girl. I'm not. I'm going back to 10-50 shares for any new buys-except the DOG (inverse I just bought to try to offset some of those losses I just mentioned-I expect it won't get me to even before I bail, but it will help reduce the pain of the others I'm still holding at a loss).
I'm trying to go one theme with the Roth and a different theme with the brokerage account. diversity through the accounts. right now I've got IAU in the taxable, got the energy and spec stuff in the Roth. probably got that backwards, actually.
Anyway-I get stuck in analysis paralyis more due to having small account I think, than I would with bigger account. Cap preservation comes mostly first (or did til this year anyway-got to get back to my baby once more). :embarrest:
Will let you know how my account is doing in the months ahead. Can't wait to get my first dividend payout (rolled back in of course)!
Good luck to you!
