Stock trading and investments?

[Zodiark1593]

Given the state of the stock market, I’d like to learn more about it and maybe start dipping my toes in a bit. Any sites or apps that could help one get started?

 

(just kind of observing right now, certainly no plans to throw tons of money at stuff. )

[PhantomJaguarr]

My friend showed me the Robinhood app. It’s user friendly since it was my first time investing.

[Zodiark1593]

17 minutes ago, PhantomJaguar77 said:

My friend showed me the Robinhood app. It’s user friendly since it was my first time investing.

Thanks for the info. I’d heard of Robinhood. Was unsure if it was trustworthy, or really very easy to get into. 
 

Thinkorswim looks fairly promising as well and offers a fairly comprehensive mobile app. 

[Fred Castellum]

On 4/22/2020 at 4:58 PM, Zodiark1593 said:

Thanks for the info. I’d heard of Robinhood. Was unsure if it was trustworthy, or really very easy to get into. 
 

Thinkorswim looks fairly promising as well and offers a fairly comprehensive mobile app. 

Full time stock trader here, I don't recommend Robinhood. The biggest attracting factor to Robinhood for people was that they we're essentially commission free so didn't require you to pay a fee to make a transaction, and that they'd give you a free stock with they're friend referral system. Unfortunately for Robinhood many other well established brokerages have also decided to go commission free so there goes one appealing feature. Robinhood is notorious for slow and bad customer support, and extremely untimely service outages during trading hours that have resulted in tons of traders losing money. I've heard my fair share of horror stories with Robinhood and I've seen posts talking about they're company employees joking about server outage issues during peak trading hours when people are losing money. 

 

I personally use TDameritrade's ThinkorSwim platform and it's by far the best trading platform available in my opinion, it's highly customizable, you can program custom trading indicators and even make the platform look like something else entirely if you wanted to. They have in platform live customer support, and they respond in minutes most of the time. They rarely have any server side issues that can interrupt your trading and in most cases if something does happen on they're end they'll find some way to compensate you. 

 

For reference my setup looks like this, not modified a whole lot.

 

With current market conditions stock trading may look pretty appealing but you should still trade with caution and set up a proper trading strategy with risk management. We are likely to have bigger dips in the coming months. 

[Zodiark1593]

34 minutes ago, MyInnerFred said:

Full time stock trader here, I don't recommend Robinhood. The biggest attracting factor to Robinhood for people was that they we're essentially commission free so didn't require you to pay a fee to make a transaction, and that they'd give you a free stock with they're friend referral system. Unfortunately for Robinhood many other well established brokerages have also decided to go commission free so there goes one appealing feature. Robinhood is notorious for slow and bad customer support, and extremely untimely service outages during trading hours that have resulted in tons of traders losing money. I've heard my fair share of horror stories with Robinhood and I've seen posts talking about they're company employees joking about server outage issues during peak trading hours when people are losing money. 

 

I personally use TDameritrade's ThinkorSwim platform and it's by far the best trading platform available in my opinion, it's highly customizable, you can program custom trading indicators and even make the platform look like something else entirely if you wanted to. They have in platform live customer support, and they respond in minutes most of the time. They rarely have any server side issues that can interrupt your trading and in most cases if something does happen on they're end they'll find some way to compensate you. 

 

For reference my setup looks like this, not modified a whole lot.

 

With current market conditions stock trading may look pretty appealing but you should still trade with caution and set up a proper trading strategy with risk management. We are likely to have bigger dips in the coming months. 

Yeah, I’ve seen those dips the past week too. The volatility makes me wary, even if I don’t have much invested. Just about barely broke even on my first day before I decided I had enough and pulled out. 
 

I’m still on the fence if I want to commit myself to stocks tbh, even once the economy picks up. Even dipping my toes in a tad feels like stepping into a different world. 

[Fred Castellum]

24 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Yeah, I’ve seen those dips the past week too. The volatility makes me wary, even if I don’t have much invested. Just about barely broke even on my first day before I decided I had enough and pulled out. 
 

I’m still on the fence if I want to commit myself to stocks tbh, even once the economy picks up. Even dipping my toes in a tad feels like stepping into a different world. 

Yeah it's been pretty volatile the last couple of months, things can shift in either direction based on news popping up. Volatility is a traders best friend though, it helps you make those great short term gains. 

 

If your a bit iffy about trading you could always paper trade(trade with fake cash) on ThinkorSwim and test out trading strategies that way, just contact the live support in platform and ask them to put the paper trading account to market real time so you can paper trade the live market. There are tons of resources online where you can learn how to trade like Inestopedia.com and youtube videos on the topic(though some videos are all talk no content). Lots of research and backtesting is suggested if your brand new to trading, too many new traders just end up gambling instead. There are also different types of trading you can do based on what sort of time frame you want to trade with as well, do you want to trade for short term profit? Mid term or long term? Day Trade or Swing Trade? What sorts of technical indicators do you want to use for charting stocks? Effort isn't always equivalent to reward when it comes to stock trading, but the more effort you put in to learn the higher your chances are at seeing good results. 

 

A lot of it comes down to mental aptitude as well, you could be given a perfect highly effective trading strategy but if you don't have self control over your emotions your still destined to fail long term. You either learn mental discipline the hard way, easy way, or not at all. 

[dalekphalm]

Here’s my suggestion:

 

First, you should take a chunk of your after-expenses income and invest into a well diversified investment portfolio (the specifics of the profile largely depend on your risk tolerance, age, and what the purpose of the savings are - long term vs short term for example). 
 

I would use the above method for retirement savings (RRSP or your nations equivalent, TFSA, etc). I would also have a second portfolio similar to the first, for longer term non-retirement savings (basically saving for large purchases like a house down payment, car, etc). 
 

Now, what about actual direct stock investment? Well, sure! But make sure you plan accordingly. I would suggest now you take a small additional amount of leftover money that you can afford to lose, and use that to fund direct investing.

 

I use a platform called Wealthsimple for my investment portfolio, and their corresponding app Wealthsimple Trade for direct stock investing. 
 

For direct stocks, as long as you research the companies and make sure they look like they will be able to weather the current covid crisis. 
 

Personally I own some stocks in companies I like. I also make preference for domestic stocks to support my national economy. And I also look at stocks that typically pay a regular dividend (basically a payment of the companies profit that goes to stockholders). 
 

Most importantly, don’t put your money all in one type of stock. Diversify!

[Zodiark1593]

16 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

 

Most importantly, don’t put your money all in one type of stock. Diversify!

This is kind of what allowed me to break even Thursday/yesterday as opposed to losing money. Some stock tanking were offset by gains elsewhere.

[dalekphalm]

27 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

This is kind of what allowed me to break even Thursday/yesterday as opposed to losing money. Some stock tanking were offset by gains elsewhere.

True.

 

But also don't get worked up over short term losses.

 

Even a well diversified portfolio can experience short term losses during a massive market downturn. But that portfolio will recover over time, and you won't lose all your money.

[Zodiark1593]

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

True.

 

But also don't get worked up over short term losses.

 

Even a well diversified portfolio can experience short term losses during a massive market downturn. But that portfolio will recover over time, and you won't lose all your money.

So for now, probably best to just keep up on the news, form a plan with diversity in mind, then execute when I reasonably believe the timing is right? And don’t obsess over numbers every minute (within reason). 

[dalekphalm]

16 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

So for now, probably best to just keep up on the news, form a plan with diversity in mind, then execute when I reasonably believe the timing is right? And don’t obsess over numbers every minute (within reason). 

Everything except timing. 
 

If you’re “waiting for the timing to be right”, you’re starting to try and play/time the market. 
 

Don’t. Sooner or later you’ll lose. 
 

When investing, especially in a portfolio like an ETF or other fund, buying sooner is basically always better. 
 

Make a plan, execute, and don’t worry about the timing. 
 

With that in mind, when buying individual stocks, timing can matter - but more specifically, it’s about whether the company’s future looks good. 
 

If you’re on the fence about a company that is struggling but looks like it might recover eventually, then waiting might be a good idea. 
 

On top of that, if you really want to play stocks and time buying and selling, use an even smaller pot of totally disposable money and just do it for fun.

 

If you’re doing it to make money, then diversify, buy (keep to your schedule), and simply wait. Time is your friend.

 

Make sure you have a retirement investment and long term non retirement investment strategy before doing direct stock investments (or do all at the same time). 
 

And remember no amount is too small to get started. Some platforms can set you up on a managed portfolio with automatic deposit every month starting as low as $5 or $10/mo contributions. 

[TetraSky]

Just a question about stocks and what not... For example, if I invest $5000 in a company, and then their stock plummet... I keep hearing people saying "I lost XX$ amount", but... Did you really lose it?

What I mean is, as long as you don't sell your investment/stocks, you still have them and if it ever goes back up, you'll get back your money, no? Or does your $5k just disappear into the nether if stocks plummet, never to be seen again even if the stock price goes back up?

[Andreas Lilja]

16 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

What I mean is, as long as you don't sell your investment/stocks, you still have them and if it ever goes back up, you'll get back your money, no? Or does your $5k just disappear into the nether if stocks plummet, never to be seen again even if the stock price goes back up?

Goes back up.

[TetraSky]

20 minutes ago, Andreas Lilja said:

Goes back up.

Oh good, that's what I thought, thanks for clarifying.

[dalekphalm]

56 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Just a question about stocks and what not... For example, if I invest $5000 in a company, and then their stock plummet... I keep hearing people saying "I lost XX$ amount", but... Did you really lose it?

What I mean is, as long as you don't sell your investment/stocks, you still have them and if it ever goes back up, you'll get back your money, no? Or does your $5k just disappear into the nether if stocks plummet, never to be seen again even if the stock price goes back up?

So stock value isn’t actually actualized (“real”) until you sell it. 
 

If you buy some stock and it tanks, then recovers before you sell it, you didn’t lose any money. 
 

You only lose money on stocks if they tank and you sell (panic selling most often, or selling to cut your losses), or if a company becomes defunct and the stock dissolves. 
 

Case in point, AMD stock. It’s price has been all over the place. If you bought in mid-2006, you paid around $40/share. For the next 10 years, people would’ve said you “lost” money on that stock. 
 

But if you kept ahold of it and held, AMD stock is around $56/share today. That person who bought in 2006 has recovered their losses. 
 

But as said above, the profit or loss is irrelevant until you actually sell (or the company goes under). 

[TetraSky]

10 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

So stock value isn’t actually actualized (“real”) until you sell it. 
 

-snip-

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation.

Now I just need to get started with a bank or company in Canada that doesn't charge millions in fees for every little thing... My bank (Desjardins) charges waaay too many fees to do trading through them... I'll look into TD, with some luck, maybe they do the same as the US with no fees... Unless there's some other place to do trading without going through a bank? (Robinhood as previously discussed I guess, if they are even available in Canada... But I've also heard it go down during "critical" moments so I'm worried about using that...)

[GDRRiley]

I've got a mix of my stocks in Charles swab robo account and then a little that I choose personally. I'm not a big fan of them but I didn't set this up. TD is what a few of my friends and family who trade more like.

It has been set super conservatively the last few years as it is my college fund which I'm using now

The money I've chosen to invest is money I've accepted I could lose. It is all right now in one stock and I wish I had tossed in 2-5x the amount I did because I knew looking at roadmaps they were going up.

[dalekphalm]

11 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation.

Now I just need to get started with a bank or company in Canada that doesn't charge millions in fees for every little thing... My bank (Desjardins) charges waaay too many fees to do trading through them... I'll look into TD, with some luck, maybe they do the same as the US with no fees... Unless there's some other place to do trading without going through a bank? (Robinhood as previously discussed I guess, if they are even available in Canada... But I've also heard it go down during "critical" moments so I'm worried about using that...)

The platform I use - Wealthsimple (and Wealthsimple Trade) is Canadian. With WS Trade, Canadian stocks are commission free, and US stocks are fairly cheap commission wise. And there are no other fees. 
 

I used to use TD direct investing but if you trade in small volumes the fees will wipe away any profit (note: I haven’t used them in several years so maybe this changed). 
 

I highly recommend WealthSimple (shameless plug: pm for referral link). 

[TetraSky]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

I highly recommend WealthSimple

I'll check them out!
"Wealthsimple: Get Rich Slow"
I'm already laughing though. 

[dalekphalm]

16 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

I'll check them out!
"Wealthsimple: Get Rich Slow"
I'm already laughing though. 

They have pretty good marketing. They also put out newsletters on advice, etc. 

[TetraSky]

16 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

They have pretty good marketing. They also put out newsletters on advice, etc. 

Got an issue though... How do I... Transfer money into the account from my bank account... It made me create a Wealthsample account to add funds, but there's no obvious way to transfer from another bank. 

 

Edit : Nvm I found it...added 1.5k to start with, will play around with that and if I end up making a profit a year from now, will see about investing more.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, TetraSky said:

Got an issue though... How do I... Transfer money into the account from my bank account... It made me create a Wealthsample account to add funds, but there's no obvious way to transfer from another bank. 

You just add your bank details (bank no., transit no., and account no.). 
 

You can find that info on a deposit form, some banks will let you see it via the online account, where others make you go into a branch. 

[dalekphalm]

13 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Got an issue though... How do I... Transfer money into the account from my bank account... It made me create a Wealthsample account to add funds, but there's no obvious way to transfer from another bank. 

 

Edit : Nvm I found it... My bank is not on the list. RIP.

You should be able to add any Canadian bank (or credit union) manually with the transfer numbers. 
 

Also make sure you’re using the right app (WealthSimple for ETF funds or WealthSimple Trade for direct stock investing - Trade is available only via mobile app for now). You can use the same account for both. 

[TetraSky]

Just now, dalekphalm said:

You should be able to add any Canadian bank (or credit union) manually with the transfer numbers. 
 

Also make sure you’re using the right app (WealthSimple for ETF funds or WealthSimple Trade for direct stock investing - Trade is available only via mobile app for now). You can use the same account for both. 

Yeah, I found it. I was just looking at the default list of banks and totally didn't even notice the "search bar" right above them... I've initiated transfers of a bit of funds, should have news about those within a few days. Will use that to "have fun" and if it makes a profit, I'll see about adding more in the future. (Though I don't expect much at this point in time, maybe a year from now lol)

[dalekphalm]

4 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Yeah, I found it. I was just looking at the default list of banks and totally didn't even notice the "search bar" right above them... I've initiated transfers of a bit of funds, should have news about those within a few days. Will use that to "have fun" and if it makes a profit, I'll see about adding more in the future. (Though I don't expect much at this point in time, maybe a year from now lol)

Yeah it took about a year for my ETF to come into profit - it was up over 12% before the covid outbreak.