Recap of Week 1

I lost track of some of the days so recapping everything I have done for this week. I think I will do more weekly updates as it is a better and more effective use of my time.

I am almost finished with Tim Sykes' PennyStocking DVD. I am not doing a full review, but commenting on the value I got out of it:

• I love the fact his strategy is based on trading on a short term base rather than long term. The strategy places little emphasis on fundamental analysis and more on technical analysis.
• The money I will be investing is pretty small. His strategy seems pretty optimal for what I am trying to start with.
• I have very little knowledge of technical analysis, the DVD was a good primer and introduction to it.
• His explanations of chart patterns was pretty interesting and educational. I like the fact he used several real life examples of where he was successful and not so succesful. Also him being transparent and pointing out where he made errors was insightful.
• The charts... he goes through several patterns and pounds certain things in your head. He makes the point patterns repeats themselves.
• Going year by year as an investor. There was a lot of value of him imparting what he has learned throughout the years. But this part was particularly interesting because he gives value by imparting knowledge only gained by experience.

The thing about the whole DVD to be quite up front is that it seems pretty easy. Yeah, I haven't begun trading yet but conceptually it seems like a pretty simple strategy. But reading Trend Following has made me correlate to a lot of what he is talking about regarding technical analysis and following patterns and trends.

Also read a lot more of Trend Following. This is something they never taught me in school (although I was an accounting major). I love the fact that they follow a lot of real people and utilize them as examples for learning instead of just being cut and dry like most books on finance.

During the week I started tracking TIM Alerts using my TD Ameritrade Strategy Desk. I followed what he was looking at and followed trades he did throughout the day. I just figured out there was an online access to the TIM Alerts where a lot of subscribers post their trades. I am going to start following their trades as well.

I hope to open a paper trading account to get a feel for trading and still slated to trade my own money late August/mid September.