My first TIMAlerts email and my first time reserving shares to short.

Yesterday I received my first TIMAlerts email...

Anxious and excited, like a kid on Christmas Eve, I woke up at 5:00 AM (PST) Monday morning to get a jump on any pre-market buzz. I ran to my laptop anticipating my first $1,000 day... NOTE to readers: I haven’t even traded a stock yet! LOL! Back to reality…

As well I hadn’t even brushed my teeth yet, let alone opened my TIMAlerts email… and I was already thinking of how much money I could make!!! From all the blog and book reading I’ve done over the past six months there are a few very common rules that every (successful) trader (past and present) stand by…

Rule #1 – Patience, patience, patience. Don’t try and create plays that aren’t there, wait for obvious indicators before you buy into a position.

Rule #2 – Cut your losses quickly (3-5% - depending on your bankroll aka capital). Never fall in love with any stock. If you’ve bought into a lemon, admit it to yourself and GET THE HELL OUT FAST!

Rule #3 – Don’t be greedy. ENTRY and EXIT points are what will make and/or break your bankroll. If you get a solid ENTRY point, don’t be greedy; get a solid EXIT point too! Don’t be too proud to take your $.50 to $1.00 a share profit all the way to the bank! And if by chance a play is continuing its momentum on a breakout or breakdown, then average up or down your ENTRY point aka buy more… but again, DON’T BE GREEDY!

… there wasn’t anything that looked overly exciting from the 8 TIMAlerts sent out on Monday... which is ok. No profit, no loss, no stress.

Today’s TIMAlerts were similar to Monday’s, with the exception of one – TLGD. After reading Tim’s breakdown of this particular stock he recommended it as a potential short; I did a little technical research of my own and liked what I saw (granted I have an untrained eye) so what I saw could be complete BS!

I got in touch with my broker, Thinkorswim, via livechat, and asked if I could reserve 1,000 shares with a limit order set at $10 (this was my first time doing this). Currently this stock is trading @ $6.13, meaning my position equals $6,130.00. My account has a cash value of $4,863.13, which means that I’m using margin to make this purchase; increasing the risk, to an already risky play.

Fast forwarding to the end of the trading day, the stock was bouncing back and forth all day between ~ $6.25 and $6.00ish. There was never a clear ENTRY point for me, so I'll just watch it for now. Since my reserved shares are only good for one day, I'll have to reserve them again tomorrow. No profit, no loss, no stress.