Hi everyone, this is my first post. I've been reading various posts throughout the site over the past week and felt like this is as good a community to join as any I have seen. I started trading stocks back in April of 2002 and only traded until November 2004. That was my introduction to the stock market, self taught, no schooling in trading what so ever. I started with $1,200 and exited 2 and a half years later with a profit of $1,700. Dues to finances I was unable to continue but recently felt the bug to give it another try. I feel I have learned alot from my first time around. My feelings about the stock market vary from there is money to be made to the stock market is one big scam, but I do believe in it regardless. My main goal is not only making money but to actually make my living by trading stocks. I believe that will take 1. time 2. DD 3. luck 4. timing 5. trade less on emotion than I did the first time.

Some people think the market is a gamble but my feeling is it is 100 times less of a gamble than lottery tickts or a casino or sports betting.

Two things I did the first time around stick out the most and drive me to continue thinking that I can do this and make a living at it. I turned $1,200 into $3,600 in about 6 months and that included getting to about $2000 and losing a $1,000 in one bad trade and then taking it back up (I bought about 1000 shares of ADSX at $2.14 and panic sold it at $1.20). I was also trading at a time when some of the giants were crashing (Worldcom, Enron, Adelphia, Global Crossing) and played them at their bottoms. The other thing was I had put $1,5000 in CMKX diamonds @ .0001 watched my account go to $15,000 in about 2 weeks (once it made it's move it only took 3 days) and I DIDN'T SELL... I was sick but man was it a hell of a learning experience. What I took out of that was 1 big thing... don't get greedy (eaiser said than done).

I have a set of beliefs that in order to make money (by the way I only trade stocks) I have to live by.

1. Learn to play along with the market, you can't beat it.
2. Luck is as big as anything else.
3. Put your time in doing DD
4. Understand that you will not get in at he very bottom or out at the very top.
5. Any stock is a gamble, whether it is a sub penny or a $50 stock ANYTHING can happen (much safer gamble than other forms though)
6. know what you want to do ahead of time and do your best NOT to trade on EMOTION
7. Trade on percentages rather than dollar amounts (if you double $1000 because that's all you had it might not seem like a lot but it was DOUBLE. If you had $5000 and doubled it you would feel so much better but in reality you still only doubled it which is a 100% gain.
8. Believe in yourself.
9. Try your best to figure out who is pumping a stock because they own it and who is pumping a stock because they believe in it.
10. Risk Vs Reward.... penny stocks are a risk (but so are the enrons and world coms) but the reward is much higher than so called safer picks
11. Never invest more than you can afford to lose
12. a .01 stock that goes to .02 is a 100% gain.... a $1.00 stock has to go to $2.00 to give that kind of return and a $20 stock has to go to $40.... it's a percentage game, I still like $1 to $3 stocks. My theory on $1 and higher is I want to be able to buy at least 1000 shares. The more shares you own the less it has to move to make that higher percentage. For example investor A buys a 1000 shares of ABC @ $1 and investor B buys 20000 shares of ABC at $1 also, ABC goes to $1.20 and they both sell for a 20% profit A makes $200 minus cost of trade and investor B makes makes $4000 minus the same cost for the trade. For me understanding and comprehending this is a HUGE aspect to making money. I won't be happy doubling $5000 a year, granted it is better than any other investment but since it costs me about $25,000 a year to live comfortably I would be going into debt even though my investent doubled.

Well anyway I feel as though I am rambling but wanted to let everyone know who I am and why I am here, to join a community of investors (not scam artists that are rampant all over the internet, and paid pumpers like I used to witness on Ragingbull) and make money.

With that being said I am going to go read some posts in the forums, get some ideas and see what I can do.


Dz Nutz