Are any of the new stock market beginners having trouble?

Question

I have been experimenting with an idea that has proved to be very worthwhile. I signed up for a stock market gae at: www.smartstocks.com, they provide you with $1.M to start off with and help you keep track of how much you spend on stock purchases, what your current Cash amount is and so on.

If I am not to sure about whether a stock is going to go up in value or not, I will buy 1000 shares of that stock on this game and then monitor it. If this stock does well, then I go to my laptop and purchase 1000 shares of this stock online, I try to buy when the stock price is low and then sell when its high. I only use this stock market game to guage which way the stock I am interested in will run, and according to the records on this stock market game, I am ahead $32,000.00 in profit, but I only started doing this with the game on June 24, 2008, so thats a profit of $32K in less than 7 days.

Doing it online with my laptop, I have earned $41K in these 7 days of buying and selling stocks

Answer 1

You're doing great.  Keep it up.

Answer 2

You have no idea how much dissapointment you're going to have. The damage to your portfolio will be painful.

What you're doing may work a short period of time. But.... this is no way to trade & no way to learn how to trade. This can only end in pain..... (sorry)

Answer 3

Hold the trade.

Help me out.

1. You are a new investor in the stock market?

2. You are going long ONLY when the entire market trend (except basically commodities) has been plunging since 2006 and yet somehow, as a new investor, you have a black box investment system and you're making money hand over fist?

"...for the past three months, I have been averaging around $5K per day... "

So you have made over $300,000 in 3 months?

You own/ traded

1000 sh BIDU is $327,000? cash or margin?

1000 sh GOOG @ 534 is $534,000 cash or margin?

What is the size of your portfolio? Margin requirements?

"...I will buy 1000 shares of that stock on this game and then monitor it. If this stock does well, then I go to my laptop and purchase 1000 shares of this stock online."

And you, "...had to deal constantly with a hacker that enjoys messing with the live stock quotes, and manipulating the number of shares I purchase" yet your insist your lap top is "hacker proof."

Please repost this is the PC section for their comments on how only part of your computer is being hacked.

Next, in a game there is no correlation that you could actually make real purchases in the market in real time. Game trades are not sent to the market so bids and asks are hypothetical. Games are fun, but these stock games have no basis in reality. Been there done that too. Real trades with real money is an ENTIRELY different game!

Great to have practice, but I'm sorry, if you could perform going LONG ONLY in a Bear Market, I would like to offer you Lehman Brother's as my free gift.

I have read about and or interviewed over 300 potential hedge fund managers I was looking to hire, and many had some black box trading program. I have busted every black box program over the last 19 years as being false.

If you can PROVE to me you have anything close to what you are claiming, I know plenty of hedge funds will will pay you millions of dollars a year to run their funds.

Show me your actual trade confirms.

I am also a NASD Licensed Compliance Officer (SR24); see my bio .

Answer 4

There are a few points shy of reality at smartstocks. For one, in the real world you have to pay brokerage fees. For another there are dividends that some folks receive.

The biggest problem, I suppose, is that some kids (many schools have classes that use this as an educational tool, you'll spot them in the "groups" listings) seem to delight in buying and buying and buying repeatedly. You think I was redundant? Well when you look at the percentage gains of several thousand, no tens of thousands of percentage points each month, then it becomes obvious that some are "gaming" the game.

If you use it in a realistic fashion to check out a strategy before putting real money to your method, then it is a very convenient tool. Good luck.