one trade, five days, $10K

Disclaimer: I only trade penny stocks very rarely and only with money I can afford to lose. I do not recommend trading penny stocks to anyone who does not fully know what they are doing.

Hit a new milestone this week guys!

Finally had my first trade that crossed the $10,000+ mark and it only took 5 days!
The trade was on a sub-penny stock with the symbol VPCO.
Here's a series of tweets I posted about the trade prior, during, and afterward..

Wednesday, February 24th

The idea came from a brilliant trader I follow on twitter, who mentioned VPCO could have bounce potential. It was just recently delisted from NASDAQ down to the OTC market and had dropped like a sack of bricks... 

lesson 2: opening your account and brokerage reviews

Types of investment accounts you can and should open.

Brokerage account:
This is your average trading/investing account. Open one of these if you want the freedom of being able to deposit and withdrawal at any time.

Roth IRA: 
This is one type of retirement investing account. Here's how it works...
You can deposit up to $5500, after-tax into the account per year, you can also take your deposits out at any time with no fee. Any capital gains that you make in the account are not taxable as long as they stay in the account. Once you turn 59.5 and can start making qualified withdrawals, the capital gains will be taxed at your then tax rate. Due to the power of compounding, this is a fantastic account to open, deposit your yearly maximum, and let the markets do their magic.

Traditional IRA: 
This is another retirement investing account. The only benefit difference between this and a Roth IRA is how it can help your tax situation. You can deposit the same $5500 per year, however, when you make your deposits to this account they count as pre-tax dollars. So, when you file your taxes at the end of the year, you can show them that you deposited $5500 into your IRA, and it will look like you made $5500 less income! Woo!

Here's a little chart I created to show how much you can earn and save by letting your account compound and grow in a Roth IRA, assuming you deposit $5500 per year, earn the market average of 7%, and grow the account for 40 years.

You only deposited $220,000 and you end up with $1.25M. Nice!

I would recommend opening up both a brokerage and an IRA. If you already make a lot of money and need the benefit of lowering your taxes a bit, choose Traditional. If you don't need to worry about the tax break right now, choose Roth, and MAX THEM OUT!

Brokerage Review: Where to Open Your Account

There are a few brokerages I have worked with over the last few years, so I'll give you a short summary of each in order for you to decide what best fits you.

lesson 1. getting started

types of investments 
stocks 

There are private companies and public companies. The difference between the two is that private companies have private owners, whereas public companies are openly traded on the stock market and have many "owners". Every time you buy stock in a company, you are technically becoming a part owner of the business. Stocks are very volatile compared to other types of investments, such as bonds and mutual funds, in that the price can fluctuate up or down drastically at any given moment. People buy stocks in hopes that they can sell it for a higher price than they bought it for; these gains are called capital gains.

Example: You bought 200 GoPro (GPRO) shares on 2/7/2016 for $10 a share, total investment of $2000. You then sell your 200 GPRO shares three weeks later on 2/21/2016 for $12.50 a share, netting you a total of $2500. 

Net proceed from sale of shares - initial investment = profit/loss

$2500 - $2000 = $500 profit

dividend paying stocks

Dividend paying stocks are essentially the same as regular stocks, however with dividend paying stocks, as an owner of them you will get paid a quarterly dividend. What's a dividend? Dividends are sums of money paid out to stock shareholders every quarter from the company's profits. So, if you own one of these stocks during the dividend dates, you will be paid the dividend per share you own, right into your account. These are good investments as they are typically less volatile than regular stocks and they provide steady income. These stocks give you the potential to earn money through both dividends and capital gains.

Example: Say you owned Walmart (WMT) stock during the dividend dates for the last quarter of 2015. WMT's dividend was $.49 per share owned. If you owned 100 shares of WMT, you would have been paid out $49 into your account, just for that quarter. If you owned it all year and the dividend amounts stayed the same, that's an extra $196 in income for you. Let's also say you bought the 100 WMT shares on the first day of 2014 for $75 a share. One year later, you sell the shares for $85 a share. Your total investment gain/loss would be as follows:

Dividends + net proceeds from sale of shares - initial investment = profit/loss

$196 + $8500 - $7500 = $1196 profit

daily market update

This is where I'll keep my charts, trades, and thoughts. I'll update it as much as possible, so check back often for new ideas! If you want an opinion about a specific stock, leave a comment below, email wolfofwalmart@gmail.com, or tweet me @wolfofwalmart!

DISCLAIMER: The blue/red lines, shapes, and arrows are all technical charting lines I use to help give me an idea of where the stock could go. I will link a post about easy to use charting techniques very soon! 

February 12, 2016 - What's going to happen to the market and your favorite stocks next week? 

First off, saw Deadpool on Friday night. Holy cow...  so good. 9.9/10. If you haven't, go see it right now. Preferably IMAX. Got this sweet lil' poster, too.

I'll start by reminding everyone that the U.S. markets will be closed on Monday, February 15, in observance of President's day.

Before I get started, I want to tell you a small thing about SPY. Like I said, SPY follows the S&P 500 to a T. The S&P 500 is an index (large collection) of stocks like the Dow Jones and the NASDAQ composite. SPY, however, is only 1/10 the price of the S&P 500 at all times. So, if you hear on the news that the S&P 500 fell 50 points (dollars) today, then that means SPY fell 5 points. In the chart below, you see that SPY's price is currently $186.63, which means that the S&P 500's total price is $1866.30. Hopefully that helps a little bit!

So, what happened in the markets today?

Well, not what I wanted. But, just what I expected.