Have 30 days to grow portfolio!!!

[LucindaDark]

Hello OTF,

We started a stock trading group in college and have till end of April to grow our portfolio to the maximum return. Besides day trading is there a strategy that I could use to pick stocks that could a) be bought/sold in a few days, (b) bought/sold in a few hours, or (c) bought/sold in 1 or 2 weeks.

As I'm a student, it would of course help to learn about strategies that do not involve looking and translating complex charts/graphics. I'm of course familiar with firm characteristics such as Betas, PEGS, EPS, e.t.c. but those seem to be for long-term stock investments. Thanks in advance.

egrizzly.

[lwjxxcczaim]

One strategy....Just fade big moves. Look for stocks or etfs at all time highs and short them...or if something has made a big move that day wait for a turn around and fade it.

Start the contest off with a long/short portfolio. Long SPY while short AAPL...short TLT while long FXE...Long TWTR while short FB....safe stuff like that. Look for when the SPY is offset percentage wise compared to QQQ and short the one that's up and go long the one that is down and wait for them to revert to normalcy.
Let everyone else beat themselves up. Once someone has taken a big lead start taking riskier trades and if you start to put heat to them they will start to take riskier trades.

When your playing for a limited amount of time you need the biggest movers.
There are ETF's that give you 2 or 3x volatility vs something.
For oil there is DIG and DUG
FAS,TNA,SPXL,FAZ,TZA,SPXA
are some others.
TVIX.
Lower priced equities tend to move more especially if the their volatility is high.
A couple of people in the contest will have huge gains and a couple will have huge losses. You have to beat the ones with huge gains. Shooting for being safe will land you in the middle. So you have to take bigger risks than you would in a real account.

If you are fading a big move don't get shook out right away if it moves against you. Be prepared to take some losses.
If you get into the last week and you are still behind you have to take hail mary's like long TVIX if the market is up. Or look for binary events like earnings plays and pick the side that looks like it has the most room to move.

In the end you should either be up huge or down huge....there is no glory in mediocrity.

Unless there are prizes for 2nd place or something....then there might be a little glory in mediocrity.

[MadisonTorrens1]

...your trading language sounds very technical. I'm just a Finance senior in college taking an Investment class. What exactly is a long/short portfolio. You're talking about offset SPYs and volatility, e.t.c. It all sounds like greek. Could use a little simplification on this. Is there a significance in looking for volatility and how do I adopt that into buy/sell decisions without watching the market in real time?

[MalirPl]

Long/short just means you are long some things and short others. AAPL and SPY are highly correlated. So if you are short one while long the other the P/L's (profit/loss) will tend to offset.
SPY and QQQ are highly correlated....so if you at some point during the day notice one is down 1.5% and the other is up .5% then short the one that is up and go long the one that is down. Further movement tends to bring them back to a normal correlation...and if it doesn't you won't lose much as each position will offset the other to some extent until they do.

Google terms for clarification...investopedia is a good resource.

Volatility just means the potential for movement...the higher the volatility the more potential movement is being priced into the derivatives....but it gives you an idea of fear or expectations of movement for the stock..
To win you need movement.

Long means you buy the shares and hope they go up so you can sell them for more.
Short means you sell (borrow) the shares and hope the price goes down so you can buy them back cheaper for a profit.

Net/Net more money is probably made from selling trading ideas than the trades themselves make.

[ManuelGolf]

egrizzly said: ↑
...your trading language sounds very technical. I'm just a Finance senior in college taking an Investment class. What exactly is a long/short portfolio. You're talking about offset SPYs and volatility, e.t.c. It all sounds like greek. Could use a little simplification on this. Is there a significance in looking for volatility and how do I adopt that into buy/sell decisions without watching the market in real time?
You're a senior finance major and you don't know the difference between long and short or hasn't had a derivatives class? Yeah okay..... What school do you go to?