I joined a few days ago and just now getting around to making an introduction. My knowledge of investing and the stock market is nil, but I'm reading everything I can and trying to make sense of it all is really overwhelming. I'm a 40 year old web developer living in a 100k population city in the Midwest US, married with 3 kids aged 13, 11 and 2 (oops!) Ultimately I've wanted to fire up some web-based businesses. I've dreamed up such things as niche social media platforms, e-commerce sites, daily fantasy sports data tools, affiliate marketing sites, and so on. None of these ever getting off the ground for one reason or another. So my latest craze is the stock market. I saw someone else earlier talking about moving from real estate into investing in an attempt to simplify their life, and it occurred to me that was really what I was after without even really realizing it. One of the biggest mysteries (and fears) for me so far is a stock market crash. What happens? How does it happen? One day you wake up with no money (or almost no money)... what the... what! Does someone trip over a cord and the system goes blank? Obviously that's not what happens, and I've read about this and it seems it can be caused by a number of factors. But nobody seems to really know exactly when this happens, except a few lucky dogs that claim to have been able to predict it (but really, A - were stupid lucky or B - had knew it was coming but didn't know when, but if you're all cash when it happens, then easy to say you did know). I'm also trying to figure out how to play ERs. Or, well, trying to figure out if that's something I really want to mess with. It seems like there's just as much fluctuation before the ER than after, but I've only been tracking some stocks here and there for a short bit (maybe a month or so). I've seen stocks have great ERs and do nothing, and have seen stocks have poor ERs and shoot up. PLUG is a recent example of the latter. Other than that, its just a matter of figuring out how to read all these wicked-looking charts (LOL they are scary) and taking a little dip here and there with some money I've set aside that I don't mind losing - if that's what happens - in an attempt to test things out. I've also read to stay away from Robinhood, I've read that TD is the best thing I can possibly do as a novice, and I've read really nothing about other platforms (so if others have ones they like, speak up!) This seems like a nice place with a lot of knowledgeable and friendly people, and I've already gotten some little nudges in the right direction here and there by folks in the short time I've been here. So, again, happy to be here and hope to keep learning, and maybe contribute here and there once I get neck deep in all of this and understand it a bit more. Cheers! Jedd
If you figure ER out, let me know. NIO just reported today (shareholder here) they beat estimate and raised expectaions and share dipped. Aside from that, u may have seen me be negative to robindahood. But honestly, id bet they are as legit as any brokerage out there. My caution to you would be know your own limits. Set your own limits. My understanding is they are less likely to set them for you.
