OIL is cheap... Xmas present

With the decline in the price per barrel for oil, a lot of the oil drilling companies have taking a beating. I decided to buy some more of BPZ @ $4.90 to bring down my average cost to ~ $8.30 from my earlier purchase back in July before the huge downturn in oil. I think oil will eventually head back towards $50 - $60 next year.

Rally Cap

I put on the rally cap for the last few days as the market has rallied ~ 11% in the last few days and including today. Unfortunately this market still looks real bad and I don't like the feeling right now. I sold have of my shares in APPL at the buzzer today @ ~$95 (+7.9%). I will be looking to probably sell the rest tomorrow. I have a strong feeling the market is heading for another dip, where I will enter back into APPL again at a lower price.
For monday I will be looking at entering some ETF's to short the market during this dip.

I'm looking at FAZ, SRS, and REW.

Apple

APPL entry point hit today. Bought in @ $88.
Tech market also looks bad at the moment, but it should bounce back some within the next month. Will be looking to sell some @ $100.

Tech Drop

Tech Sector got hit hard today and my entry point for Apple is closing in. It might hit tomorrow or possibly friday.

Bank of America entry point hit today and I bought in @ $17.50. I'm hoping this is right as the financial sector looks horrible right now, but I believe BAC is a good looking long term play.

Financial Sector

Financial Sector has tanked this week and my target entry price of BAC is closing in. I have my entry point set at $17.50, so lets see if it hits tomorrow.

Market Sell Off

The market sell off I was expecting is in full effect. I expect the unemployment report that will be released tomorrow to be pretty bad, which should cause even more selling on friday. I think the sell off will continue into next week. I will be looking for my entry points soon.

Presidential Rally

The market has continued to rally going into today's Election. I decided to take more profits today as I still feel the market will sell off again from the recent weeks rally. I sold 20% of my holdings in each of the following stocks:

Sold FRO @ $38 (+ 52.3%)
Sold POT @ $94 (+ 44.6%)
Sold CAT @ $41 (+ 36.7%)

If Oboma wins the presidency their could be a possible rally on Potash (POT) as an Ethanol play. If this happens I will be looking to take more profits around the $110 level.

Otherwise I will be waiting for another sell off to buy in again. My current watch list and entry points are:

AAPL @ ~ $85 Tech
FRO @ ~ $25 Transportation
CAT @ ~ $30 Capital Goods
CVTX @ ~ $7 Bio-Tech
BAC @ ~ $18 Financial

Nice Rally

The market has had a very nice rally the last two days, and so I decided to take some profits as I know the market will drop back down again. Sold 20% of my holdings in FRO, POT & CAT.

Sold FRO @ $31 + 24%
Sold POT @ $82 + 26%
Sold CAT @ $37 + 23%

I will be looking to buy shares back again when the market drops back down again. I wouldn't be surprised to see these back at the entry points I posted as soon as next week...

FRO & CAT

Two entry points executed today... FRO @ $25 and CAT @$30.

Also bought more shares of Potash (POT) @ $65 to help bring down my average cost.

Uhg

Well... obviously it has been a while since I have posted. What a fun down hill ride this market has been. Definitely learned a lot about the stock market over the last few months, which is a good thing, but my portfolio is of course hurting like most other investors.
I have realised this is a great opportunity to start my long term portfolio positions buy getting into great stocks that have fallen to their lows.

Here are the stocks and prices points I will be looking to get into over the next month.
Most important are FRO, CAT & BAC as these three companies have nice dividend yields of 16%, 6% & 5%. I plan to sit on these dividend yields while this market continues to be crazy.

Company Name, Entry Point, Sector

Apple (APPL) ~ $85 Tech
Frontline LTD (FRO) ~ $25 Transportation
Caterpiller (CAT) ~ $30 Capital Goods
CV Therapeutics Inc ~ $7 Healthcare
Bank of America ~ $18 Finance

First Trades

These actions actually took place back in June.
The first two stocks I decided to buy as my first real experience in trading in the stock market were Potash Corp./Saskatchewan (POT) and BPZ Resources, Inc. (BZP).

Reasons I chose these two companies:
Potash Corp is the largest supplier of fertilizers in the world. Fertilizer prices are at an all time high due to a high demand and not enough supply for farmers around the world.

BPZ Resources is an oil driller in Peru and Ecuador. With oil prices on the rise and this small company upgrading its capacity and drilling capabilities it seemed like a great investment.

Results (so far) and mistakes made:

The price of oil continued to rise after purchasing BPZ and I made some small gains after a couple weeks, but then the huge drop in oil prices began and this stock suffered.

Potash was similar results in that the first couple weeks I had made small gains, but even though Potash reported record earnings that had quadrupled for this quarter, I got first hand experience of what happens when the market decides to switch sectors. Commodities had been on a great run and I thought I would join in on this. A few weeks after I joined in the big hedge fund managers have decided that financials, healthcare and drugs are the new place to be. This has caused a major sell off in commodities and of course the Potash stock has suffered even though the company is doing great.

Another big mistake I made and have now learned from is one that many new investors make. Buying your stock as a money market order and also purchasing all the stock at once rather than over a short time period.

Hopefully I can learn from these mistakes and continue forward.

The First

This is the first post of hopefully many, where I plan to archive my strategies, reasons, success and failures of investing in the stock market.

I am a 25 year old recent college graduate from California, who has always been fascinated with the stock market. Although my studies were in Computer Science and my current job is with a Consulting firm as a Programmer/Analyst, my other passion has been the stock market. Until recently I have never actually traded any stocks and I am therefore not very experienced.

After setting up my 401k, making sure I have full health benefits and purchasing my own place to live, I decided to take a small amount of money that has been sitting in my savings account and start learning to trade in the stock market. I have always been a firm believer that "It takes money to make money". In order to become rich you must have money to invest in something. My early education has landed me a well paying job in an industry I enjoy. Now that a good steady income is here, I plan to use my excess money to hopefully make me more money.

One of the most dissappointing things people will need to learn in life is that a well paying job will barely keep up with the cost of inflation. You either need to have a job that pays well above most americans, or you need to invest excess money into something that will return more money than the average inflation rate. The average anual inflation rate is about 3.5% per year, which means the money you are saving better be earning at least that amount each year to be the same value in the future. Unless you want to lock you money up in long term bonds, cd's, treasuries you had better be investing in real estate or the stock market.