E-TRADE DABBLING?

**guroo270** · 10-09-2018, 09:34 AM

Pondering starting an account with $1000 to fart around with while I'm at work. Do a little day trading in my down time. Do it? Do it, but not E-Trade? Save it for Blurred's old fryer?

**schwerty** · 10-09-2018, 10:29 AM

I would ask yourself how much that 1k means to you. Not saying you’ll blow it. I have no idea what your background is. Just my .02.

If it’s play money and it sounds fun then why not? Develop a game plan and parameters. Have some fun.
If the 1k is a sizable chunk of change for you, I’d work on a long term investment and savings plan before dicking around with part time day trading.

**dan_pdx** · 10-09-2018, 10:42 AM

If you just want to dick around, you might want to play with a free trading simulation before putting down real money. Here's one that is well-reviewed, but there's lots to choose from: https://www.howthemarketworks.com

Otherwise, I agree with schwerty -- if you can afford to blow it, go for it. If you really want to make some money, buy something boring and leave it there forever. My "damn the torpedoes" play right now would be to short the parent company of Moviepass, but I figure all the sharks beat me by like 3 months.

**4matic** · 10-09-2018, 11:00 AM

You’re in Vegas so you’d have better luck in the casino. Trading is a full time job. List your trading rules here before you start.

Remember. If you take a 10% loss in one trade you need to make 12% on the next one just to break even.

The biggest mistake beginning traders make is under capitalization and over leverage.

**thefortrees** · 10-09-2018, 11:05 AM

Day trading is much different than passive investing. You are likely better off just buying an index ETF or some blue-chip paying dividend and letting that $1,000 sit for a while in an account with a dividend reinvestment program (DRIP). Check out www.dogsofthedow.com for a good place to park $1k if it is your first time in the game.

**skaredshtles** · 10-09-2018, 11:07 AM

Any background in trading/finance?

If not - yeah - what all those other people said.

To take care of all the suspense, head to a local casino and put the whole $1K on black.

**Timberridge** · 10-09-2018, 11:10 AM

Go for it. Everyone has to start somewhere.

Simulations are just that. Until you actually do it with real money you might as well play Monopoly with your friends. If you loose it all, consider it an education for $1000.

**Danno** · 10-09-2018, 11:10 AM

Trade away if you're willing to lose all the money.

**AdironRider** · 10-09-2018, 11:17 AM

Keep in mind you can't day trade without 25k in your account. Etrade will lock that shit down if you try.

**Timberridge** · 10-09-2018, 11:20 AM

Originally Posted by AdironRider

Keep in mind you can't day trade without 25k in your account. Etrade will lock that shit down if you try.

Perhaps he can trade every other day then?

Originally Posted by Danno

Trade away if you're willing to lose all the money.

Very negative outlook Danno. What if he's a natural?

**LightRanger** · 10-09-2018, 11:39 AM

Robinhood app?

**nickwm21** · 10-09-2018, 12:55 PM

Who will let you open an account with $1k?

You usually need $3k to open.

Robinhood is a good choice for hobby trading. With $3k and a free account you have like a 24 hour lag on sales. Not day trading, but free.

Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

**guroo270** · 10-09-2018, 04:30 PM

$3k is doable, but certainly dips into the new motorcycle fund. I'm basically just tired of seeing things come out like Bitcoin, FB, Air BNB, Lyft, Tesla, etc., using them very early on, realizing their potential and never making a dime on investing on these things.

**SkiCougar** · 10-09-2018, 09:34 PM

not sure you can day trade on etrade. I have an account being a moving average investor and my trades usually take a day to settle; but I'm doing more than a few thousand.

just fyi, 95% of day traders lose money; so you might read a few technical analysis books before you turn your $1000 into $900 in a month; very easily done.

**SkiBall** · 10-09-2018, 09:38 PM

I use ETrade for my play trading. They have been fine. They may have a certain amount that may give you free trades for an initial period which is nice.

Originally Posted by SkiCougar

not sure you can day trade on etrade. I have an account being a moving average investor and my trades usually take a day to settle; but I'm doing more than a few thousand.

just fyi, 95% of day traders lose money; so you might read a few technical analysis books before you turn your $1000 into $900 in a month; very easily done.

They do take a few days to settle, but they will allow you to reinvest that money before it settles so long as you don't sell what you re-invest in before it settles. I know this because I learned the hard way and got a time-out when I inadvertently did it early on.

**bw_wp_hedonism** · 10-10-2018, 02:36 AM

Originally Posted by guroo270

$3k is doable, but certainly dips into the new motorcycle fund. I'm basically just tired of seeing things come out like Bitcoin, FB, Air BNB, Lyft, Tesla, etc., using them very early on, realizing their potential and never making a dime on investing on these things.

Keep in mind you wouldn’t be be able to get into half these things with E-Trade - lyft, AirBnb, Uber are private. And be careful what you wish for on the others (bitcoin has lost something like 2/3 it’s value since Christmas last year, Tesla terrifies me but you might have a different view on the company and it’s balance sheet).

Keep in mind that there’s tons of people out there who make a profession of looking for 10x baggers. If you want to look for one for fun, make sure you’re willing to lose your money. Don’t count on it for retirement.

**guroo270** · 10-11-2018, 09:55 AM

Thanks for the info, guys.

**Buke** · 10-11-2018, 11:21 AM

Many years ago I opened a brokerage account and deposited $1000. I had read a book on the fundamentals of trading (how to read a balance sheet, basic financial ratios, etc) and I had also read big chunks of Ben Graham's book The Intelligent Investor. My idea was to do long holds and buy things that I thought were particularly undervalued.

Initially I bought $500 worth of MSFT and $500 of a company called Fisher Scientific that I suspected would be a good buy. At some point I got bored with the MSFT stock, sold it and used the money for something else. If I remember right, msft had basically doubled in value over the couple of years that I held it with the help of dividend reinvestment. Fisher merged with another company and became TMO. Once in a while (like every 6-12 months) I check on it to see if I should dump it and the general wisdom is that it's a hold. Over the course of roughly 12 years it's gone up over 500%. So, by my calculation that's an irr of about 16% annually. Not too shabby for doing absolutely nothing. By my math, the S&P 500 has gone up about 6% annually over the same period.

My general take away from my experiment was that to earn money investing in the stock market isn't too difficult if you're disciplined about it and fairly passive. With that said, it takes an enormous amount of time to find stocks that are undervalued. If you simply want to gamble on TSLA or some other trendy company, then go ahead. Treat it the same way you would if you were playing black jack at the casino. If you're not willing to lose it all then don't bother. On the other hand, if you want to make real money you'll need to pony up a lot more than $1000 and you'll need to spend a lot more time than 15 minutes during your lunch break when you would normally be looking at TGR. For me, I'm better off doing what I'm good at and spending my free time with my wife and kids.

**MiddleOfNight** · 10-14-2018, 08:34 AM

Do it!
I opened an e trade a while back with some OT money .. just to screw around with some international/unconventional investments. Not day trading, but 'farting around' to be sure.
Side benefit: It got me interested in learning more about some different markets and companies. The account has made a (very) little money, but the entertainment value has been huge. Good luck!

**MontuckyFried** · 10-15-2018, 05:36 AM

Originally Posted by dan_pdx

If you just want to dick around, you might want to play with a free trading simulation before putting down real money. Here's one that is well-reviewed, but there's lots to choose from: https://www.howthemarketworks.com.

On another forum I used to be on many years ago, we had an ongoing "Fantasy Stock Market" competition using a simulator like that, which would of course use real world data. Everybody would start with $1,000,000 of monopoly money, "invest" it however the heck you want, and we'd go a full year to start. That was actually a ton of fun and interesting to see how things would play out. Year one, I doubled my money. Year two, I lost it all...fast. It's a fun experiment with nothing to lose. That said, I do wonder if I would have behaved differently with my investment patterns had real money been at stake.

What it did teach me overall is that trading stocks is kind of fun and very fascinating, it is essentially not much different than going to Vegas. Gotta look at it that way. As long as you're not betting the farm, and really just having fun with it (ie keeping most of your money in more traditional funds), then go for it! But yeah, might not be a bad idea to play with the trading simulations for a couple weeks first to get a feel for it and see what happens.

**Timberridge** · 10-15-2018, 07:56 AM

The story above is why trading simulations don't approximate the real deal. You do 2x in one year and -2x in the next year, what have you learned about investing real money? If I'm in a trading contest on a simulator, I'm gonna grab a fistful of biotech stock and either kill it, or be killed.
Using your own real money is the only way to teach yourself mental discipline. This applies to whether you want to play poker, or play the stock market. If you really want to test your mental discipline, try investing other people's money.

**mud** · 10-15-2018, 09:11 PM

I've found the time I've spent learning to trade only taught me to cut that shit out and just fatten up the divided stocks and forget about it.

If you really want to have some fun check out
r/wallstreetbets