(Part 3) Top products from r/StockMarket

I'm not sure I follow.

Mutual (and index) funds trade their NAV at the end of the day.

ETFs trade like stocks throughout the day.

I looked of SPY's expense ratio on Yahoo Finance, and looked up the expense ratio of the UBS fund in the prospectus using Google.

Transaction costs are a thing - many brokerages offer some no transaction fee funds, but if you buy outside that stable, they charge commissions, and i'm not sure why, but mutual fund commissions are usually a lot more than stock commissions. And now, there are lots of ways to get access to free stock and ETF trades.

The last bit about options was a little more in depth, but still (I thought) barely scratching the surface.

All I'm saying is the information is out there for everyone to find.

As for what I read, I don't even know anymore. A TON at one point. I also passed the Series 65 at one point, but never did much with it. But that was more to validate my knowledge than to create knowledge. And even though it sounds fancy ("Investment Advisor"), the test was 90% about legal and fiduciary duties, not about investments themselves - studying for the 65 won't net you much knowledge about options, trade commissions (except sternly telling you NOT to churn client accounts for your own benefit), and so forth.

Looking way back in my Amazon order history, here's a few interesting books:

Options as a strategic investment
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735201978/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Unconventional Success
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743228383/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Pioneering Portfolio Management
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416544690/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Bond Markets, Analysis, and Strategies (Cram101 Textbook Outlines (link doesn't work anymore)

There were a ton of other books, too, but I must have gotten them from places other than Amazon. But I think those three are great starting points.

The big thing is, Pioneering Portfolio Management was written for institutional investors, not us. It's still a good read. Unconventional Success is the same author applying it to regular people. I read both, but I'm not sure how well Unconventional Success stands on its own (maybe people who have read only that can chime in). And options are a great tool to learn more about; I know some people go crazy just trading calls in hopes of outsized gains, but I wouldn't recommend that. Mostly I like them because, at their simplest, they provide strategies for mitigating risk (either buying puts, or selling calls), but like i said, that risk mitigation can act as a headwind.

Hopee that's somewhat helpful?

We all love the stock market. Yeah, but slightly off base here. Baseball betting, it's legal in New Jersey now. If you are into stats and ALGO seems like a natural, picked 6 winners in a row. That's never happened to me in the market. :-)

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Baseball is all stats, if you put your time into it, think you can come out ahead. Lots.

Back to the dow ... :-)

Here's a former trader saying how he does it:


\> Trading Bases: How a Wall Street Trader Made a Fortune Betting on Baseball

https://www.amazon.com/Trading-Bases-Fortune-Betting-Baseball/dp/0451415175/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

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Trading options is more complex than trading binary instruments (stocks, fx, futures, etc) as there are a lot more moving parts. Options are like ternary instruments, they allow one to profit if the underlying goes up, down, or sideways. Best way to get started is to learn what a put and a call are. Then move onto basic positions. The best approach I can recommend is to pickup a beginners book. I read this - the first version - which taught me the ropes quickly. I also picked up several other books afterwards that got into the subject on a deeper and more technical level. One of the most fascinating things I've learned so far is what implied volatility is. See another post. With IV you can work out statistically the chances of a trade profiting. Like someone else mentioned, www.tastytrade.com, a free streaming live options talk show, is based on statistical trading and not trading on fear/hope.

Traditionally, iron condors are traded with index ETF options such as the SPY or IWM. There's obviously less risk of a massive move in a short amount of time. Though black swans do exist, see 2008, euro crisis, debt ceiling, etc. If the s&p or the russel stays in your IC's range until it expires, you win. You profit on theta decay this way. Since ICs are short volatility, there was a huge drop in NFLX implied vol today -went from 70sh to 50sh. That 20 some odd point drop in IV alone amounted to over 50% of $4800. The rest was from theta decay and delta.

I found this to be a pretty good resource from a non-biased source. Granted it gets decently technical and doesn't read like a novel.. but if you're actually interested -- should be worth the skim. (particularly the section on market-micro-structure). There's probably a better book out there more focused specifically on market-micro-structure, but I haven't read it.

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Algorithmic-Trading-Portfolio-Management/dp/0124016898/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1412367379&sr=8-5&keywords=algorithmic+trading

The intelligent investor is a great book to pick out what you should be looking for in a stock and why it's important to look at those things. Operationalizing those teachings in the modern market is a bit more difficult, and things have changed considerably since graham.

First book: II for sure.

Second book:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0471463396/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_RU76yb2AM26NX

Agreed, definitely feel like I'm walking on eggshells when discussing the matter.

In regard to "The Games People Play," is this the edition you're referring to?

https://www.amazon.com/Games-People-Play-Transactional-Analysis/dp/0345410033

There's a book by the same name. I thought it was a good read, but I read it out of interest, not so much looking for technical knowledge.

If you want to find ways to better understand I recommend some of the classic books McMillan on options

Read the Bogleheads guide to investing. This honestly should be required reading for all Americans. The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470067365/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_6tBgDbZ99RCSR

A good all around book would be Come into my Trading Room by Alexander Elder. He goes over the basics and psychology of trading.

http://www.amazon.com/Come-Into-My-Trading-Room/dp/0471225347

Yes. Triumph of the Optimists.

I can recommend "A Random Walk Down Wall Street". Talks about everything you need to know.
http://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-Down-Wall-Street/dp/0393340740/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1458593263&sr=8-2&keywords=random+walk+down+wall+street

There is an answer to your question. The answer won't be an individual stock if you want "good and healthy" - by healthy I assume you mean low risk. If that is the case:

The answer is in this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Common-Sense-Investing/dp/0470102101


TL;DR - If you just want my word for it: the answer is index funds. Here is one from Vanguard.

If you want something that you can buy from your broker/Robinhood, you can buy ETFs that index the full market. The ETF based off the Vanguard fund above is VOO. It will more or less give you similar results. Avoid ETFs in specific sectors - you lose diversification doing that - which is the whole point of index funds.

Again, I want to clarify you're asking a question where the quintessential answer is an index fund. Here is a chart for a $10,000 investment in index funds from 2000 to 2015. - over 15 years.

https://www.amazon.com/Common-Stocks-Uncommon-Profits-Writings/dp/0471119288

Yep

There is a hedge fund that does this: https://www.amazon.com/Vital-Few-vs-Trivial-Many/dp/0471681954

https://www.amazon.com/Dow-36-000-Strategy-Profiting/dp/0609806998/

chart

More in-depth study can be found here

These two books

https://www.amazon.ca/Technical-Analysis-Financial-Markets-Comprehensive/dp/0735200661

And

https://www.amazon.ca/Technical-Analysis-Complete-Financial-Technicians/dp/0134137043

Random Walk Down Wall Street