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.