General Questions Thread

[SeijiSensei]

There are still lots of day traders in the US, I think. The arrival of the Internet enabled many more people to participate in the markets directly.

I do often laugh at one current ad on American television from the online brokerage called E-Trade. They've established links with a number of foreign exchanges so E-Trade account holders can buy and sell stocks directly in places like Shanghai. The ad shows a rather geeky-looking guy in his late 20's who boasts to the camera about how cool it is that he can now buy shares in Shanghai.

Of course, the current value of the dollar overseas makes this a ridiculous strategy these days. Since you need to convert your dollars into the local currency before making the purchase, a weak dollar makes foreign exchanges over-priced relative to domestic markets.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Onizuka-GTO

erm...okay understood that you earn by the differences you do by selling the stock at a higher price.

not going to ask about the other stuff, you just left me behind.

I'm sorry. I got carried away.

Yes, if you boil it down to its purest form, investment/speculation is basically about gambling on price differences. However, unlike gambling, which is based purely on dumb luck, investment/speculation is all about making good, educated guesses that make you money.

Depending on what product (financial instrument) you're investing or speculating on, you'll need to study different factors in order to make fairly accurate guesses about which way a market is moving:

For example:
1) If you're investing in company shares (equity), you'll need to study the company and compare how well it is performing against its industry.

2) If you're investing in foreign currency (forex), you'll need to learn how to do technical analysis, ie, learn how to read charts, to get an intuitive feel of how price trends are moving.

3) If you're investing in vintage wines (alternative investments), you should preferably have very good knowledge about the nuances of wine production, to know which year was a "good year" etc.

4) If you're investing in real estate (ie, your house and, sometimes, the land it stands on), it'll be to your benefit to know the neighbourhood. Does it have good schools? Good public transport? Who was the architect? Who was the developer? These factors all affect house prices to some extent.

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Even if you don't know these things, you can hand your money to a broker, ie a middleman, who is presumably knowledgable about the market. You then trust him to invest your money on your behalf. In return, he gets a small cut of your profit, in the form of commissions.

This can be done on a single transactions, as is usually the case with equity stockbrokers. Or, you can buy a mutual fund, like what LynnieS suggests. A mutual fund is basically a HUGE collection of many people's money into a common pool. And then, you trust a fund manager to invest that pool of money to the best of his ability. Because of the bigger pool of money available, the fund manager can do many interesting things that a retail investor (ie, you and I) cannot do.

Here's my personal advice: Don't think too highly of your fund manager. Very often, they are about as clueless about the market as you and I. Chances are, if you put enough effort to study the market, you can do just as well as he can. I personally think it's silly to pay someone to manage your own money, especially if that someone is not as "expert" as he claims to be.

(That said, I'm a lazy person, so I invested some of my savings in mutual funds, instead of becoming a day trader.)

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What is a day trader?

It's the common term to refer to individuals who trade directly in the market. The Internet has made this extremely easy. All you need to do is open a trading account with an online trading platform, pump in some of your savings into the account, and voila, you're ready to trade. Some of these online platforms even provide "trading tutorials" to help you familiarise yourself with the software and thus gain the confidence to trade.

Originally Posted by Onizuka-GTO

so i guess you can only earn a living on the stock market is working for a company i.e. middle man, and if you want to do the trading yourself you have to have a lot of money already.

You don't need a lot of money. As LynnieS said, you can use leverage, ie, borrow money from the stockbroker/trading company to make your first trades. These would be the margin accounts I mentioned earlier.

However, this is where many rookie investors go horribly wrong. Because they had such easy access to credit, they forget that they are playing with money they do not own. Depending on the trading company, you normally have to repay what you borrowed anywhere from within three to ten days (or maybe more, I'm not sure). If you haven't made your profit from the trade by that time, you'll have to fork out your own cash to pay back the margin account.

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Ok. Here's the answer you're really waiting for. Can you make enough money from day trading to support your desired lifestyle?

Simple answer: Yes.

I actually know a handful of friends who have been doing this successfully for the past eight or ten years. Basically, they get up each morning, cash out some of their previous day's investments, read some market analyses, place their bets for the day, and then spend the rest of the day doing whatever they like.

It's a very simple routine. It takes up no more than perhaps one or two hours of their time each day. But there are a few simple rules.

Rule 1: You must not be greedy.

Rule 2: You must accept that you'll win some, and you'll lose some.

Rule 3: You must study your market. Otherwise, you'll be trading blindly.


Everything else comes with experience. With sufficient experience, you'll develop sounder judgement and a keener intuition about market movements.

Because, in the end, every market is driven by herd instinct. Ultimately, there is no logic. There is only pure human emotion. Always remember, a sucker is born every minute.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Ok. Here's the answer you're really waiting for. Can you make enough money from day trading to support your desired lifestyle?

Simple answer: Yes.

I actually know a handful of friends who have been doing this successfully for the past eight or ten years. Basically, they get up each morning, cash out some of their previous day's investments, read some market analyses, place their bets for the day, and then spend the rest of the day doing whatever they like.

But if you want to really cash in, sometimes it pays to hold onto stocks and ride things out. For example, anyone who invested in Apple eight to nine years ago was looking at a dying company. Their stock growth was phenomenal during that time span. If you'd invested then you would currently have anywhere from five to ten times the amount that you'd put in. It doesn't seem like too much, given the amount of time you'd have to wait, the initial funds you'd have to give up to make it worthwhile, and of course the fact that it is little more than a gamble (even if you can make educated guesses, there are so many factors involved that you're not really bettering your chances much).

Personally, I'd love to invest in AMD at this point. They're close to the brink of death, but if they can survive long enough to put out their next line of processors, I'm pretty sure that their stock value will go up tremendously.

[LynnieS]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

I do often laugh at one current ad on American television from the online brokerage called E-Trade. They've established links with a number of foreign exchanges so E-Trade account holders can buy and sell stocks directly in places like Shanghai. The ad shows a rather geeky-looking guy in his late 20's who boasts to the camera about how cool it is that he can now buy shares in Shanghai.

Well, the USD/RMB's exchange rate isn't freely moving in the same way as, say, USD/EUR or USD/CAD, so the weakness of the US dollar isn't so huge a worry, IMHO. Trading in China out of the U.S., though, and not doing it through red chip companies... Seems kind of dangerous (and foolish) to me. The Chinese market had been thought of being a bubble, and I don't think that has changed. And it's not someone in the U.S. will have a huge advantage over someone in China who may actually know the companies first hand.

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

1) If you're investing in company shares (equity), you'll need to study the company and compare how well it is performing against its industry.

For stocks, technical analysis techniques are also widely used - just as, IMHO, if you are trading forex and commodities, you should be studying government policies, infrastructure, and such. No debate about real estate, however. It's pretty much a local investment - although I knew guys in Hong Kong, Sydney and Tokyo who bought apartments in places like London (years ago), Dubai, and in Australia as rental properties.

I do consider mutual funds to be better for the average investor - mainly the research you would need to do - at least when you first start out - to understand your industry and companies - can take time. Once you have invested in the funds, you're done - just needing to review every quarter or so. A lot of the "better" (as in with high returns) funds, though, are open to only the rich, but companies came out with the "fund of [hedge] funds" for people with less. You should, if you go this route, read the prospectus carefully since it will describe, in rough detail, what the fund is about.

But there are companies that because of various reasons, will not let U.S. residents invest. Just FYI for people there.

The kind of margin accounts that I know of - unlike the kind described by TinyRedLeaf which might be popular in Singapore? - is more along the lines of keeping the market value of the investments in the account above a threshold so you are not losing money. If you go below, you'll get a margin call so you will have to put in more cash or sell.

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

I actually know a handful of friends who have been doing this successfully for the past eight or ten years. Basically, they get up each morning, cash out some of their previous day's investments, read some market analyses, place their bets for the day, and then spend the rest of the day doing whatever they like.

That sounds more like trend trading than day trading? Day traders usually don't hold positions overnight in case their stocks' momentum goes against them during the after market and/or pre-open session, if any.

Originally Posted by Ledgem

But if you want to really cash in, sometimes it pays to hold onto stocks and ride things out.

In this case, you're an investor, and not a trader. Making a living in the markets as an investor is, IMHO, more for the medium to long term - mainly because it can take months or years before your investment comes in the money. On the plus side, the trading costs for an investor are normally less - because you don't trade often, the fees, taxes and such are less.

[monster]

What's the difference between sh*t and the sh*t? I read somewhere that using the second form to label someone is actually a form of praise. What does it actually mean?

[asunder]

yes, this is just slang.

[insertnamehere] is a shitty person while [insertanothernamehere] is the shit! the shit can be 'translated' as 'cool/awesome/the bomb/whatever else kids are saying these days'

[Furuno]

This is computer related but I don't htink it should be in Tech Support because this is just a silly question :P

Question :
Maybe some of you already know that there's a bug(?) in Windows XP that you (or at least I) cannot rename anything into "con". But, then, since I'm running Linux while most people use Windows. I want to create a "hidden" folder in my flash disk by naming the folder "con". So I create that... Ok, it's done, rebooting to Windows XP to try that. But, hey... the folder is there, and ...it's normal! Wonder why this is happens? Anyone...

[Ledgem]

I've never heard of that bug.

[SeijiSensei]

I don't think it's a bug so much as a legacy from MS-DOS. "con" in DOS represented the "console" device, so if you entered the command "copy somefile con" it would attempt to display the file on the screen. Perhaps "con" remains a reserved word in NT as welll?

My guess is this only applies to situations like the copy command above where "con" represents a device. I suspect if you create a file in something like Notepad you should be able to save it with "con" as its filename. The same reasoning explains why he could create a directory named con as well.

[Furuno]

Hmm... it make sense... since renaming is actually moving the file into another name (mv somefile con in Linux / ren somefile con in Windows)... so it's a reserved word... I see...

Have to find more "weird" way to hiding file...

[escimo]

List of reserved hardware/filenames found at MSDN.

CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, and LPT9

Also avoid these names followed immediately by an extension; for example, NUL.txt is not recommended.

[mangalowres]

How can I get all the Forum Banners from AnimeSuki
That thing on the top of this page

I've got 9 now but I'm sure that there are more.

[NightWish]

... by following these links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and checking the General Chat Thread Index for one of the banner contest threads.

Links fixed; I copied them without including the date and word "banner". Oops.

[mangalowres]

ho ho ho

404 - Not Found

thats why I'm asking but thx I'll search through those threads


EDIT:
Thx for the fix =)

[LiberLibri]

Is there a standard rule to create the adjective form of a proper noun? I am often confused in particular when it comes to the case of states' names.

Norway - Norwegian
Germany - German
Sweden - Swedish
Iraq - Iraqi
Iran - Iranian...

[Kyuusai]

Originally Posted by LiberLibri

Is there a standard rule to create the adjective form of a proper noun? I am often confused in particular when it comes to the case of states' names.

Norway - Norwegian
Germany - German
Sweden - Swedish
Iraq - Iraqi
Iran - Iranian...

There is, sadly, no standard, and it's one of the aspects of English that aggravates me the most.

Occasionally, especially when dealing with a new or little-used place name, a couple of variations will both circulate until one becomes used enough that other variations are considered incorrect.

"I've always wondered... What do we call people from your country in English? Hollanders? Hollish? Hollendese?"
"Dutch."
"Dutch..."

[yezhanquan]

Actually, Holland only forms a part of the Netherlands.

[Kyuusai]

Originally Posted by yezhanquan

Actually, Holland only forms a part of the Netherlands.

Well, yes, but the quote is used to demonstrate how historical usage has more bearing on terminology than actual grammar would.

[-KarumA-]

Originally Posted by Kyuusai

There is, sadly, no standard, and it's one of the aspects of English that aggravates me the most.

Occasionally, especially when dealing with a new or little-used place name, a couple of variations will both circulate until one becomes used enough that other variations are considered incorrect.

"I've always wondered... What do we call people from your country in English? Hollanders? Hollish? Hollendese?"
"Dutch."
"Dutch..."

dutch =3
on sports they always mention us as "the Dutch..."
Hollanders is what we here call each other, germans call us Niederländer I believe or Holländer but English doesn't use those words.. in our language we reffer to our country as Nederland with the inhabitants being Nederlanders, in English you can call it Holland or Netherlands, but they all call us dutch folk or simply put the dutch =x and Hollish and Hollen isn't even a word XD

[mangalowres]

Originally Posted by -KarumA-

germans call us Niederländer I believe or Holländer

You did forget "Kasköppe" and "Oranjefotz" hehehe
We are cruel aren't we. After all we don't hate them but only the garbage collectors do wear orange