RevenueQuest

My first week of trading didn’t end up with me bankrupt… which is nice. I actually turned in a profit of just about 2.3% on my TD Ameritrade account, beating the market by ~3% on a couple of trades. Here are my trades for the week:

I bought 150 C @ 3.9 and 200 more @ 3.6999 averaging down to about 3.79 PPS (Price Per Share) on Tuesday. I figured that C is worth over $4 in the short term, and the pullback in the market was a good time to get in. I was right. Once it got over $4, I got a little too conservative and put in a stop loss order at $4.01. Of course, C shot right back up after I sold my shares and never dropped that low again all day. Still walked away with $48.51 profit after commissions. Commissions cut my profits by over 38%… I gotta start trading higher volumes.

My second trade of the week was actually a mistake. I subscribed to Timothy Sykes‘ TIM Alerts this week (more on that later). On Thursday he recommended shorting MNI if broke through some “technical support” @ $2. Somehow I misread the alert and I decided to buy 450 shares @ $1.9899. Luckily the market was on my side and I was able to get out on Friday with a small profit after commisions of $7.03. Holding the stock overnight, after I had realized I had made a mistake, probably wasn’t a great idea… I just didn’t want a loss.

Moving forward, I want to get into short selling stocks. Brokers require clients to be on margin trading to short sell, so I have been waiting for that to be enabled. I am debating adding some more cash to the account as well so I can have more leverage without the risk of buying on margin.

Goal for the next week is a 5% increase. If I continued increasing profits 5% ever week on my account balance, in a years time I would be up $28k. Piece of cake, right?

Affiliate marketing has come to all but a complete stop for me. I have one website still running that makes $20-50 a month from organic traffic. Anytime I try sending paid traffic to this page, it simply doesn’t convert. There may be some hope left in the offer with a different landing page, ad copy, etc. but I just haven’t had the motivation or time to get into it lately.

But that’s ok. This blog is called “RevenueQuest;” I have always accepted that affiliate marketing isn’t the only way to make great income and the future of this blog will likely reflect that.

Lately, my earnings have come from two locations. First, I got a paid summer internship at ITT Aerospace Controls. I am learning a lot and I think it will put me in a good position when I am looking for employment in the future.

The other is the stock market; and more specifically a mutual fund called Fairholme (FAIRX). My girlfriend’s brother-in-law recommended I buy this mutual fund after being not so please with MFEGX. Since I purchased FAIRX just over a month ago, it has earned me $860. Anyone that wants to take advantage of the market right now, but doesn’t know which stocks to invest in, I think this one is a great pick

I have been doing a little trading on my own and I am currently up about 7% since February/March. Moving forward, I need to put more money into each of my trades because $9.95 trading fees are killing my margins. I am thinking $4-5k would be a great place to start.

Here is some good reading I found recently. I’m thinking about trying these strategies soon when I get a chance. Powerful Day-Trading Strategies Combining Fundamentals and Market Direction