Even “experts” can, and do, lose billions in a morning.
The stock market is truly intended to provide capital for productive businesses; buy, and hold, and receive dividends. Everything else that has developed around this core purpose, everything short term (“day trading”, market-timing, arbitrage, etc) is is a zero-sum game that is either a) functionally gambling, b) those with information, transaction speed, ability to front-run taking advantage of those without. This short-term sht is tolerated/tolerable because it serves the important functions of providing liquidity and price discovery. But, unless you have a unique advantage re: the market that others don’t (you don’t, and neither do I, and neither do any of the ‘day-traders’ who will tell you how smart they’ve been), stick to buy-and-hold. (But, GME aside, maybe don’t buy in heavily to the market now, with the equity markets clearly swollen along with the rest of the fed-created asset bubble. Note: I continue to like beleaguered (physical) Gold.)
Anyways, GME is a total outlier. I am hardly well-versed on this story, but it appears to be a comically large “short-squeeze” that longs have made it very difficult/expensive for the shorts to close out of, through recruiting novice investors and the hold-until-the-shorts-break mentality. Ordinarily that would sound sketchy as heck, but short-squeezes are real, and maintaining a short position is expensive, so I do see the endgame. You’re smart to learn the trade functions now, before you use them. However, since GME’s ability to defy gravity (until the short squeeze breaks the shorts) is uniquely predicated on the just-don’t-sell philosophy, I would absolutely not put a limit order on it. In this unique scenario, I’d advise “sell when the time is right, not when the price is right.” Anyways, those are just my thoughts.
Oh, and please be aware, GME is, practically a GTZ (go-to-zero) issue that is only defying gravity in this curious scenario. But it could easily collapse to zero, just as it could squeeze to the stars. So please don’t put any money into GME that you could not happily part with - it’s not unlikely the price could, in the blink of an eye, converge back to its real value… pennies. I’m not saying avoid this stock; just don’t be stupid or, even more destructively, greedy.
And I generally like Charles Schwab. I don’t see any reason to change that.
If you don't have a basic underestanding of the market; you shouldn't be in it ... said with love
And trial and error.
And that’s not a bad thing.
Even “experts” can, and do, lose billions in a morning.
The stock market is truly intended to provide capital for productive businesses; buy, and hold, and receive dividends. Everything else that has developed around this core purpose, everything short term (“day trading”, market-timing, arbitrage, etc) is is a zero-sum game that is either a) functionally gambling, b) those with information, transaction speed, ability to front-run taking advantage of those without. This short-term sht is tolerated/tolerable because it serves the important functions of providing liquidity and price discovery. But, unless you have a unique advantage re: the market that others don’t (you don’t, and neither do I, and neither do any of the ‘day-traders’ who will tell you how smart they’ve been), stick to buy-and-hold. (But, GME aside, maybe don’t buy in heavily to the market now, with the equity markets clearly swollen along with the rest of the fed-created asset bubble. Note: I continue to like beleaguered (physical) Gold.)
Anyways, GME is a total outlier. I am hardly well-versed on this story, but it appears to be a comically large “short-squeeze” that longs have made it very difficult/expensive for the shorts to close out of, through recruiting novice investors and the hold-until-the-shorts-break mentality. Ordinarily that would sound sketchy as heck, but short-squeezes are real, and maintaining a short position is expensive, so I do see the endgame. You’re smart to learn the trade functions now, before you use them. However, since GME’s ability to defy gravity (until the short squeeze breaks the shorts) is uniquely predicated on the just-don’t-sell philosophy, I would absolutely not put a limit order on it. In this unique scenario, I’d advise “sell when the time is right, not when the price is right.” Anyways, those are just my thoughts.
Oh, and please be aware, GME is, practically a GTZ (go-to-zero) issue that is only defying gravity in this curious scenario. But it could easily collapse to zero, just as it could squeeze to the stars. So please don’t put any money into GME that you could not happily part with - it’s not unlikely the price could, in the blink of an eye, converge back to its real value… pennies. I’m not saying avoid this stock; just don’t be stupid or, even more destructively, greedy.
And I generally like Charles Schwab. I don’t see any reason to change that.