October 31 - November 4

This week, I decided to short Whole Foods Market Inc. (a common grocery store that promotes organic food) after it had spiked up from a report that was released. The report stated that a large shareholder was looking to make some drastic changes, like selling the company. 

The chart above shows the five day trend of Whole Foods, this screen shot was taken a while after I had shorted the stock. As predicted, the stock did go down and I was able to make money. This week I sold this stock as it stopped to go down and is once again slowly on its way to making it back up. 

This week, I also sold NUGT after buying it a while ago. When I initially bought it, I expected it to go down a bit more, but it ended up going down more than expected. Just recently NUGT started to go up, so I decided to sell it in order to keep the money made. 
Knowing that the gold industry fluctuates often, I decided to not take the risk of waiting. The image above is the five day trend and was taken at the moment in which I sold NUGT. Since this moment, NUGT has not gone up any further than the peak shown in the image above.

A while back, I shorted Visa, and I have not sold it yet. The five day and three month trend show the drastic fall Visa has had. I still plan to keep hold of Visa in the short term, unless if positive reports are released, I will sell it.  

October 10 - October 14

Recap & Analysis 

     Early this week, my main focus was to keep watch on Summit Therapeutics (SMMT), this is a stock that I had shorted last week. A couple weeks back, SMMT had jumped drastically, so I took advantage of this opportunity to short it at its peak. 

I decided to keep hold of this stock for quite a while. I decided to sell it this week when I began to notice that SMMT was slowly starting to go back up, I was able to make about $5,500 from shorting this stock. A stock I invested in this week was Finish Line Inc. (FNL), which is a company that sells shoes and athletic gear from a variety of different brands. So far, I have not yet been able to make money from this stock. But I am hoping that in the near future I start to make profit of it. The recent trends of this stock shows that it has slowly been going down, but I have hope that it will go back up. This is a method I have learned - buy low, sell high. 

      The picture above is the overall five day trend of FNL. Similarly, I have a few stocks that are in the same situation, NUGT and JNUG are two other stocks in which I have bought at a low price. I have set these stocks for more of a long term goal, I do acknowledge that it may take a while for them to start to go back up, but I believe they will have a very big comeback. 
Looking at more short term, I am keeping a close look on Finisar Corp. (FNSR), a while back I had shorted the stock, now I am slowly starting to make money. For this stock, I have set a limit order. It is currently valued at $28.88, I put a limit order at $30.00. I have noticed that this stock can be very unpredictable, which is the main reason as to why  have set a limit order on it. 
   Overall, I would describe this week as steady for me. I have recovered a slight amount of money from JNUG and NUGT, and I am currently $3642.36 up, but there definitely is more room for improvement. 

October 3 - October 7

Learned This Week

       This week, I learned that for me personally, it is much easier to predict if a stock will go down, as to predicting if it will go up. For example, if you had to base your decision as to if a stock were going to go up or down, it would be much easier to predict the drop. For example, if you notice that the trend of a stock is relatively constant, and all of a sudden a drastic increase appears, it is most likely to go back down eventually. Another thing I have learned this week is how useful it can be to put a limit order on certain stocks. For example, early on in the week, I invested in Direxon Daily Gold Miners (NUGT), and initially I was able to make a bit of money. As the day progressed, I forgot to check my stocks and missed the chance to sell it at a good time. From this I learned that I should start putting limit orders on stocks that have a tendency of fluctuating often - I still have not been able to sell NUGT as it continues to drop, the picture below shows how NUGT has done in these past five days. 

What I have Done This Week and Why 

     This week, I tried out a different strategy, as mentioned previously I was able to come to the conclusion that predicted when a stock is going to crash is easier for me, with that being said, I shorted a few stocks in which I believed were going to crash, the majority of the stocks in which I shorted I was successful, those stocks being Walmart Stores Inc (WMT), Darden Restaurants Inc. (DRI) and Summit Therapeutics PLC ADR (SMMT). The picture below is a before and after of DRI, the picture on the top was screen shotted at the time I shorted it, the picture below shows the continuing days.

SMMT was one of the stocks I was able to make most money off by once again shorting. In that stock, I currently hold $5451.00, I have progressively made more money from it as the days go on, but I do plan on selling it soon before it starts to once again go up. The picture below was taken the moment in which I shorted the stock.

                                  

                                              

    Shorting was not the only strategy I took on this week, I also tried predicting when a stock/ industry would go up. This did not go as well for me. This week I invested in both Direxion Daily Gold Miners (NUGT) and Direxion Daily Junior Gold Miners (JNUG) when they were at a relatively low price, for example, I bought NUGT when it was at $14.41/share, which it has now dropped to $11.98/share. I have lost a good amount of money in both of these stocks so now my only plan is to wait it out and wait for it to go back up. 

September 26 - September 30

Learned This Week 

This week, I have leaned the importance of not over estimating a stock's performance and or potential success. Last week, after gaining quite a bit of money off of Twitter, after it had greatly gone up after Thursday,  I decided to sell my shares to ensure I would not lose the money made. Shortly after, it was said that Twitter had great potential, and that certain companies (i.e Google and Disney), were considering in buying Twitter. After finding this out, I was not sure if I had made the right move or not, on selling my Twitter shares. I decided to then take a big risk, I decided to buy shares from Twitter once again, in hopes that it would once again go up after Thursday (NFL Thursday Night games). This was a big mistake, I had put too much hope in Twitter. Twitter has not been able to go up to as close as it was last week, buying it at its peak was a risky move that ended up going downhill for me. This is once again a reminder for me to not buy a share when it has most likely reached its peak. 

What I Have Done and Why 

This week, was not necessarily my strongest week. Many of the predictions I have made were not necessarily the most accurate, Twitter being my strongest example to support this statement. This week, I have tried to keep a balance between shorted stocks and stocks that I have bought. I tried out this strategy to see if I can make more money regardless if the market is up or down. In the end, I came to conclusion that this is not really a primary factor, it is more about predicting the stock itself and not the market as a whole. Another approach I took on is investing more of my money, in hopes of being able to gain more. Previously, I invested only a very small portion of it. I am still trying to get the hang of being able to predict how a stock will do better and more accurately. This is a goal I am trying to set for this semester. To achieve this goal, I plan on keeping a closer look to trends that certain stocks have, and also keep myself more updated with information regarding to the stock. 

September 19 - September 23

Learned This Week 

This week, I learned what it means to have a margin account, and how it differs from a cash account, and also the pros and cons of having a margin account. First, a margin account will allow you to get loans from the bank, essentially allowing for you to invest a greater amount of money, where as in a cash account, you do not receive loans and all money being invested is coming from your pocket. Now the positive of owning a margin account is that if all goes well, you have the potential of making a lot more money since you are able to invest a great amount of money (which is partially provided by the bank). This week I also learned that in order to short stocks, you need to be in a margin account, so another positive is that this option allows you to have the opportunity of earning money in different ways. This meaning that you do not have to be only dependent of a stock doing will. But, the down side to owning a margin account is that if things go bad (unexpectedly) you have the potential of losing a lot of money, especially if you are not able to pay up the margin call that the bank is asking for. Regardless if you have the money or not, if you do not pay your margin call in time, the bank will take money from you as a way to insure they are covered. 

This week, I continued to short stocks in which I believed would soon crash. For example on Wednesday, September 21, 2016, I shorted Infinera Corp. at its point in which I believed it had reached its peak. The picture below represents Infinera Corp. 5 day trend, the screen shot of this picture was taken at the moment I shorted the stock. 

                

As mentioned earlier in this weeks news, it was said that Twitter was a stock to watch, after it had released a new feature allowing for live streaming of NFL games. Using this information, I decided to invest in Twitter on Tuesday, September 20, 2016. My prediction was that on Thursday (Thursday night football), Twitter would go up a great deal. I decided to invest Tuesday, believing it would be the cheapest time to invest in Twitter. Luckily, my predictions where right and on Thursday, Twitter shot up. The picture below was taken today (Friday, September 23, 2016), representing the increase Twitter had, a total of 20.90%. Investing in Twitter allowed me to make my all time highest earnings in a stock, I gained approximately $4000.

     

September 12 - September 16 2016

Learned This Week 

This week I have learned a few other things to help me further understand what stocks are all about. I have learned first hand how beneficial it can be to put limit orders on stocks so that you are able to maximize profit made on a stock, especially with stocks that fluctuate quite frequently. I have also learned to be patient with stocks, most specifically stocks that have I have already purchased. An example of this is the following, about two weeks ago, I bought a few shares from Fit Bit, and I was losing a couple of thousands from having invested in this stock. At the start of this course, I most likely would have panicked and decided to sell the stock, even with all the money lost. But instead, I decided to be patient with this stock and sell it when I was actually making profit from it. It did take a while, but I think it was ultimately led me to making the most profit I have ever made. I was also able to learn something not to do, after purchasing stocks from Fit Bit. A few days after making the purchase, I was able to determine the reason why I was loosing so much money. I purchased the shares from Fit Bit when it was at its peak (big mistake), so as time progressed, even when Fit Bit was going up, it was not nearly as close to the point at which I bought it at. After this mistake, I now know that it is seriously not a good idea to buy shares when the stock is doing so well. Instead it is a better move to predict when the stock will do well, so that you can buy the shares at a much lower price, resulting in making a greater profit. 

What Have I Done and Why 

Regards to this week, I have taken on different approaches. I have focused on stocks that fluctuate specifically, I either shorted them when I thought they were at their peaks, or I bought them when I believed they were on their way of going up. I also applied this strategy to all the other stocks in which I invested in, regardless if they fluctuate frequently or not. Since some stocks can be very unpredictable, I also set limit orders on a few of them to prevent losing a great deal of money.

A while back, around September 7, Apple had been going down after the Apple event about the iPhone 7. Since Apple was not doing so well, I thought it would be a risky move to invest before the iPhone 7 was released incase if sales did not go well. So what I decided to do was wait the day of the release go by and see how Apple did, on September 13 it appeared as if Apple did very well. So I took the risk  to buy Apple on September 14, assuming that Apple would continue to excel at a constant rate. I was lucky that Apple continued to go up after the release, allowing for me to make a profit. 

Finance Timeline 

From the Start

Before the course started, I can honestly say I knew little to nothing about stocks, but as time has progressed, I have been learning more and more about stocks. The one thing I knew was that stocks have the ability to be constantly be going up or down, so when we first started the game, I would choose to buy stocks based on if they had the green arrow beside them and if the overall graph appeared to be increasing. But later on, I took on a different approach, I started to predict stocks instead. At first I would start to buy stocks if I believed they were going to go up, but later on I also learned what it was to short a stock. So recently I have started to buy and short stocks depending on how they were doing. At first, majority of the stocks i chose did not have as much reasoning as to why I chose them, it was just me predicting how they were going to do. To this day, I chose to sell stocks when I have made a good amount of money from them so I can keep the money made from that stock. 

For the most part, I can say everything I have been doing in this game is what I have learned from this course so far. But to be more specific, some of the things I find most outstanding of what I have learned to this point is the following; first, I was not aware of how fast you can make money, but at the same time, how fast you can lose that money. Another thing I have learned is that the gold industry, is an industry that fluctuates quite frequently, which can be both a good and a bad thing (a good thing if you can accurately predict its' rise and falls a bad thing if you can not do so). I have also learned about shorting stocks, this was something I was not aware of at first, but know that I have learned about this, I think it is pretty cool because it can diversifies the ways in which you invest in stocks. I also learned that stocks is all about predicting the market, trying to as accurately predict what will happen next, accurately predicting the market is something I still have yet to learn.