I'd love to see more data.
I've been day trading the stock with ~20 shares. Some days are better than others. Today for example I bought right in, it shot up ~$5 and I sold. It was $96 in about 7 seconds. In general I wait till the 9:40 dip, which lately has been moving closer to 10am, buy and then ride that up till about noon.
I know some people, ahem, like to come at me bro for this approach but I'm simply looking to grind out more "free" TSLA shares to put into my long term pot. If I wasn't expecting dow 10,000 sooner than later than yeah I'd throw all my cash at TSLA and walk away for a few years. Sadly I'm expecting the worst with the macros and the best with Tesla which makes for some serious mental short circuitry. The best way forward, to me, is to have a set amount of ride or die shares that I'm holding till SP 20,000 and then day trade to add more into the bucket without touching my stack of cash ready to buy buildings in NYC for pennies on the dollar in a couple years. lol
So yeah, you clearly have some serious knowledge on this short term game and I'd love to learn more. I use Think or Swim platform. What kind of bands are you setting up? Are those just basic BBs? What indications should I look out for to predict this kind of thing in the future?
Maybe we should setup a new thread that discusses day trading this stock?
Thank you!
Best,
Gene
Be forewarned that this will be a post about day trading, so if this is a pejorative concept to you please skip this. That being said, I’d like to share how I’ve incrementally been able to add 25 TSLA shares (and counting) using margin to my core position over the past several weeks since C19 arose. I want to lay out the case why I don’t think day trading TSLA on margin is too risky, so long as one doesn’t make a bet they can’t afford to lose.
It’s been posted here from time to time (most recently last night by
@phantasms) that people have been having luck day trading within the first half hour or so of market open, where the stock takes a sharp drop shortly after opening, then rises $5-$15 in about 30-50 minutes. I, too, have been playing this angle, and have noticed it applies to other stocks I follow as well, not just TSLA. I don’t know why this pattern occurs, but it does very frequently, so I’ve been capitalizing on this phenomenon and now I’m going to tweak my technique after last night’s discussion of Bollinger bands brought about by
@Artful Dodger and others.
First off, let me first say that I believe holding with a long-term perspective is most likely the best way to create wealth. That is what Buffett and so many others say, and has also been my experience; it is why I keep my core shares intact and only add to them.
The problem is, I’m so bullish on that TSLA that I want more shares quickly. This has led me to day trade (only TSLA) with my margin account. Some may object that this is simply too risky, but my position is that if one isn’t too greedy and/or stupid, I honestly don’t think it is. Here’s why.
I think it’s safe to say most of us here feel as if TSLA is a pretty safe bet. Sure, it’s volatile, but otherwise it’s a pretty sure bet, and I do not own a single share of any other company (partly because I don’t feel any company is as quality as TSLA, but also because I haven’t the energy nor time to educate myself on other companies). Last night
@phantasms said he was using 20 shares to capitalize on the morning price swing and pocketing the money; I’m doing the same, but with margin because all my money is already tied up in TSLA. Plus, trading 20 shares doesn’t get you too far for the effort, but trading 100-200 can easily net you $500-$1500/day many if not most days of the week. Sure, some days are better than others, and some days one shouldn’t play at all due to bad news/bad macros/whatever, but on average this approach has been working out for me pretty well these past few weeks.
Last night, however, after reading more about Bollinger bands, I’m realizing that I’m not buying as smartly as I could be, because after I make my money for the day I just buy a share. I don’t do it thoughtfully, I just plow the money back into another share at whatever the market price is when I get around to it. This is stupid. What I’m going to do going forward is, assuming the stock will continue its relentless volatility, and assuming MMs will use Fridays to push the share price down to max pain, I’m going to try to snag a lower share price to get more value out of my money. So, for example, tomorrow, since max pain is supposed to be around $765ish, I’m going to place a buy limit at $765, with the assumption the SP will get down to that level at some point during the day. Of course, the day might be very good for the SP and it won’t get that low, so no problem, I'll make my purchase another day. I’m going to try to be more patient in my buying, that’s all I’m saying, and I’m going to rely more on the BBs, the macros, news, etc, before buying.
Today was an unusual day. The stock opened high as usual, then went higher, then started dropping. When it dropped significantly to $781 I bought 100 shares, thinking SP was getting close to bottoming out. Well it kept dropping. A lot. I searched the web for bad news about Tesla, but found none, only bad macro news which is to be expected these days. I could tell after about 30 min the SP wasn’t going to pop up to $790 or anything, so I set a sell limit at $786, thinking that the SP was going to be low for the day and that there was nothing to do about it now. I’ve sort of wanted to see if my sell orders would sell after-hours anyway (I NEVER hold margin shares, I get in get out quick), and I thought, well, tonight was going to be my night to learn if orders go through after hours. I’d lost too much, and I knew TSLA would be up again above $786 in no time, I just didn’t think it would be today when the SP was bouncing around the $760s. But as luck would have it the day turned out just fine.
Anyway, that’s my two cents. Yeah I’m open to a day trading thread, too, if someone wants to start one.
I’d like people here to give day traders a chance. We’re also longs, and we use our earnings to buy more TSLA and Teslas.
In closing, I’d like to reiterate that if one isn’t too stupid or greedy, and doesn’t make bets they can’t afford to lose (remember, flash crashes happen too), margin day trading TSLA (and only TSLA in my opinion) can be safe and profitable.