Hey, just wondering if anyone here does much trading. I've been trading in the stock market for a couple years or so.. I invest almost all my money that I have earned working. This year I haven't done too well. I've lost a little over a grand. Anyway, this thread is dedicated to any thoughts/suggestions about investing. Enjoy!

Oh and I use scottrade btw.. $7 trades

I have a few accounts at OptionsXpress but I haven't put much thought into them for the last 2 years except in the summers. I prefer short-term trading (not day-trading, but a week to a couple months) with options or long-term options to use in diagonal spreads, and school would just get me distracted too much. I'll be getting back into it again once I have a less hectic schedule.

I think im too young to play the stockmarket

> I think im too young to play the stockmarket
Better to learn when you're young... I started learning when I was 18, which was retrospectively a couple years later than I should have...

Yea.. You have less money to experience with.. I've been trading a couple of years, and other than my investment in google, everything else has lost me money. I've tried the big market stocks (you don't return much) and the penny stocks (They are too unpredictable). Hell, just a couple weeks ago, I invested in what I thought was a great pink sheets stock.. It had gone up 30% the last couple of days.. Turned out to be a pump and dump scheme, and they dumped it that day.. ended up losing $500 in two days.

What have yall invested in? And what do you find that is successful? Obviously the less risk involved, the more likely you will profit (mutual funds).. but what exactly have you discovered through experience?

I find having a backup plan and/or exit strategy is a requirement. Any trade should have a minimal loss compared to the expected return. I tend to prefer trading periodic companies though, and my trading style is definitely my own. I don't know how well it'd do, since I haven't touched in in about 9 months though...

I'm afraid to trade in the stock market.

Josh, I seriously think it's a bad idea to invest all of your savings in the stock market. If you want to do that, at least take half and put it into a high yield CD or money market.

I trade technology stocks, primarily up and coming companies that I'm familiar with. For example, I bought Red Hat a couple of years back before the launch of RH Enterprise and Fedora.

jb! Do you seriously think you are too young? Pls, it is always better to start young (to me the younger the better) so that if you crash before you are 30 it would be easier to get up and a-going!