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100 Grand

I've decided that my goal in stocks is to make 100 grand a year, from capital gains trades.  Doesn't matter if those are short term, long term, whatever.  The goal is 100k, per year.

And really, it shouldn't be that difficult to achieve.  Especially using technical trades of well established stocks.  I'm looking for my next 100 share trade.  I eventually want to work my way to 1000 share trades, but for now... I'm just going to stick with 100 share trades.  I may just keep trading 3m.  I'm kind of kicking myself for getting out early as it just recently popped.  Oh well... more to learn.

There are so many good stocks to trade though.  I mean, all you need is a good 1 to 2 dollar spread over the course of 2 or 3 days... And at least a million shares traded daily in volume.

As long as you have those two requirements... 1000 share trades are possible.

So, if there's a stock that tends to fluctuate by like 1 to 2 dollars over the course of 2 or 3 days just bouncing between Bollinger bands... that's an easy trade.

Ideally I want between 50 and 100 dollars a share... If I have 150k in capital, and I keep it under 75 dollars as share...

I can easily just rotate between two stocks.  If I can get a bump of 1 dollar per trade, every 2 days... I can easily hit 100k a year in capital gains.

It's almost like surfing.  You just have to know where to find the good waves.  You buy 1000 shares at 62 dollars a share, sell at 63 or 64... Then get back in again on the next wave.

If I can pull a 2 dollar per share trade over a 48 hour period, that's 2 grand.

Pre tax obviously.  Get in with 62 grand, get out with 64... 2k profit.

Just repeat that 50 times in a year, and you've got 100k.

It's very possible, people do it all the time.

Alternatively I can double my holding and take a longer hold time.  For example...

XRAY is the stock ticker for DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc on the NASDAQ exchange.  This stock has over 1 million shares traded a day... So buying 1000 shares in a single trade is doable.  The reason you need lots of shares traded is because of liquidity.  For every stock buy, you need a seller, for every stock sell, you need a buyer.

You can't sell shares to mid air... and you can't buy shares from mid air.  You need someone selling, and someone buying.  It's called liquidity or volume.

Anyways, so XRAY is a longer term trade.  Let's look at the latest trend...

Currently the stock is trading at 62.68.  A month ago it was at 56 a share.  6 bucks less.  If you bought one share, you'd have made 6 bucks in a month...

Let's say you bought 2000 shares?

So, that's 112 grand in, and you sell now, one month later, for... let's say 62 x 2000... that equals about 124k.  That's 12 grand in your pocket in 30 days.

Not too shabby.  That's totally doable for me right now.

I don't think I'd trade XRAY though... But, there are other stocks that hop over the course of 1 to 2 months between 5 or 10 dollars per share.

I'd probably prefer a month long trade at 5 bucks a share with 2000 shares in.  That would give me 10 grand income in a month.  Okay, so short term capital gains taxes apply, which sucks... but if you work a 9-5 job and you make that kind of money from a day job, you're going to pay what?  Probably some decent size taxes on that paycheck.

So... I'm okay with paying taxes on 10 grand made off 2 mouse clicks.

Anyways, my last trade was a wussy trade... I bought 17k worth of 3m stock and got out a week later for like a dollar profit.

100 shares X 1 dollar minus trading fees.

I'm not going to lie, having 17 grand on the line for a week was a little nerve wracking, but here's the thing, no big time surfer starts in the big waves... You start with small waves on a smaller beach.  You do it over and over and over gain.

Am I ready to put 100 grand down on a stock?  Probably not yet.  Most of my trades are around 1500 bucks... In fact I hold 54 stocks right now at about 1200 a piece cost basis... Those are heavy hitting dividend stocks, so they just keep rolling in the dividends.

But I've been doing this for years.  Sometimes I rotate stocks and re enter back at cost basis.

For example, my Kraft Heinz shares surged last week.  I could sell out for a 300 dollar profit and get back in again at baseline 1200 and then hold again.

Same with my Activision Blizzard shares.  Those popped 20 percent.  I bought those a while back...  I was actually wrong on those initially and lost like 10 percent before going back to green before the pop came through.

That's the thing with 1000 share trades, or 2000 share trades.

See 100 thousand dollars is a substantial amount of my portfolio.

Also, why am I holding so much cash in the first place?  Well, I wasn't sure how I wanted to invest it.  First, I still have obligations.  My aunt needs to get paid 10 grand next week for legal fee reimbursement.  I have taxes that are due from annuities that my mom left me in my name, and as well other taxes due.

My brother and sister are still owed some money.

All in all there should be about 100 grand left after all my obligations are met.  That's where I'll start my big trades.

However, I might also get into house flipping, or renting out condos to grad students.  I don't know yet... See, I could take that 100k and split it into 3 downpayment for mortgages for condos.  Then I could rent those condos out for monthly income.

The thing about actual real estate, is there's no liquidity, you're stuck.  You buy a condo, and you sign a lease with a tenant.... You're stuck.

With a stock, even if it's at a loss, I can still sell and get back to cash.

But I know stocks.  I've been trading 10 years now.  I know a lot of big time blue chip dividend aristocrat stocks and how they move.  Which is where I'd be likely to stay.

Yes, you could put 100k into a small cap stock, some of those will change price up to 10 bucks in a week... Imagine a 10 dollar price movement from 20 dollars a share to 30 dollars a share...

When you down 5000 shares.

10 dollars, per share, times 5000 shares.... In a week.

You do the math.

I just don't think I'd have the risk tolerance to put down 100k worth of shares on the Snap Chat IPO.  I just can't do it.

Look at Twitter's stock since IPO.  Yes, Facebook stock and Netflix would have turned out alright...

This is why I like my dividend aristocrats.  Yes, it's very possible to make 50 grand in a week with the capital currently available to me.

Am I that ballsy to do so?  Fuck no.

I have specific risk profiles when it comes to trading stocks.  I'm not a gambler.

Let's say I'm wrong on a 100k trade... If it's a dividend aristocrat known for long term market dominance and share buybacks as well as annual dividend boosts... I know that worst case scenario, I just hold my position for a year or two, and should the market seriously turn against me...

With a small cap stock, who knows.  You could possibly lose your entire 100 grand.

With a stock like 3m, that has so many different avenues of revenue... While there's never a 100 percent guarantee... 3m is one of the TOP dividend aristocrats...

When I say dividend aristocrats I mean stocks that have been increasing dividend payouts for over 25 years in a row...

If we look at consecrative dividend increases on Dividend Kingdom...

http://www.dividendkingdom.com

We can see that the number one stock for dividend increases is a boring water utility stock from Cali.

American States Water with 62 years of dividend increases.  I'd be more likely to sleep well at night knowing that my 100 grand was in on a company that has increased the amount of money they pay back to shareholders every quarter for 62 years.

Notice that number 8 down is 3m... with 58 years of increases.

That's downside protection.

Facebook doesn't even pay a dividend.

Anyways, Yes 3m doesn't move up or down ALL that much compared to other stocks... Neither does American Water States... This is called the Beta.  Beta is how much it moves compared to the stock market as a whole.  I like a low beta.

I want stability... There are some penny stocks that have off the charts betas and go nuts randomly...

Honestly, it's entirely possible with 100 grand if you REALLY know what you're doing, and if you used margin trading, and shorted stocks as well... To make a cool million in a month.

There are traders that do that ALL the time.

I am not one of those people.  Ask me when I'm 44... Maybe another 10 years in the market, I'll have a desk at home with 4 monitors and all kinds of stock screens up.  I might trade all sorts of things...

For right now, I'll keep going with my 100 share trades, 5 grand, to 20 grand in... And make a measly 100 to 300 bucks per trade.

I'm just not ballsy enough to be at the 100 grand level yet.

But, my full intention is in the next few years, to make 1000 share trades on a weekly basis or 2000 or 5000 share trades on a monthly basis...

The plan is to get good enough at stock surfing that I can easily pull 10 or 20k a month in income from it.

We'll see though... This is all theoretical at this point, as of right now the only trade I surfed this whole year so far was 100 shares of 3m... I got in too early, and got out too early, making what could have been a 400 dollar profit only 96 bucks.

Obviously I have a lot of learning to do.