# Any Traders?



## atclarkson (Jan 22, 2009)

Stocks, Options, Futures, Forex, Commodities?

I'm just learning. I hope to do it fulltime someday.... it's incredible stuff!


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## conix67 (Jul 27, 2008)

I don't trade stocks but most of my RRSPs are in mutual funds. Most of my expert friends, day traders have lost significant amount of their investment in last few months, as almost all of others have. However, there have been some claims that many traders actually gained quite a bit over the same period.

Most people thought they'd never lose by purchasing products prepared by big institutions. The truth is hard to swallow but these guys took advantage of all unsuspecting investors.

Look at Mr. Madoff. Look at Lehman brothers. Look at CITI group. Look at AIG. Look at Big 3 automakers. Look at all those in wall street. Read this article

http://www.portfolio.com/news-marke...folio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom

The current stock market erased 20year gain in overnight. There's simply no better explanation than *something is wrong* with this. How wrong is it that a company which is practically bankrupt is allowed to pay bonuses to their execs in millions *legally*, using tax payer's money?

My opinion is trading stocks is not much different than gambling. Sometimes you can get more predictable results through gambling. People have been gaining through stocks, mutual funds and other products over the last few decades, mainly because the market index was going up on average.

I've been working for one company for more than 10 years and I cannot predict this company's stock price at all! Even though I'm very knowledgeable on our competitors, current market condition, our future product roadmap, etc.

Canadian government needs to stop approving merger/buyouts of good Canadian companies by foreign companies. Most of these mergers/buyouts end up with the Canadian operation downsizing/shutting down, costing tens of thousands of jobs in Canada, especially in Ontario.

At the same time, they need a better way to regulate the large corporations so we don't repeat the stories of companies such as Nortel.

The unfortunate truth is that many large corporations are filled with execs who don't give a sh*t about anyone else but themselves, and all they care about is short term gains, leaving the company incompetent after few years of operation, and if this attempt fails they will lead the company to a buyout/merger by larger foreign companies, which usually results in some significant gains to them which seem to be the only thing they are after.

Sorry for a long rant here, but since you brought up this topic, I thought I'd add my view

Another interesting article

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10651

Maybe there's something I haven't seen or heard of.. I'm desperately looking for some positive news these days, if you have some please share with us


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## Sunstar (Jul 29, 2008)

I think we lost some in stocks recently. it fluctuates


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## JamesG (Feb 27, 2007)

conix67 said:


> How wrong is it that a company which is practically bankrupt is allowed to pay bonuses to their execs in millions *legally*, using tax payer's money?


I would never have bailed out any of these companies in the first place but what you are referring to is the misplaced outrage over AIG. Despite the word "Bonus" being used these amounts were essentially retainers to keep these people working for AIG to hopefully save the company from sinking. The term being shortened by the media is actually "retention bonuses". AIG was legally required to honor the terms of these contracts. Would people be as outraged if AIG was a manufacturer who used the bailout cash to pay a supplier? What if this supplier was located in a foreign country? Would the cry be that taxpayer money is being sent to China for example?

Everyone gets upset that these people get so much money and some businesses fail but their salaries would not be so high if they weren't that valuable to big companies. Joe X makes $1M a year and is doing a great job at ACME Inc. He gets approached by Inotech with an offer for $1.5M. It is like bidding for a house everyone wants, the values go up if they perceive value to be present.

Also, in publicly traded companies the shareholders make choices regarding mergers and buyouts. CEOs, CFOs, etc serve the board of directors selected to ensure the shareholders wishes are carried out. Canadians with voting stock decide to sell their companies to foreign firms not "evil CEOs".


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## conix67 (Jul 27, 2008)

Yes I know this is called retention bonus, not performance bonuses. But you're missing the point there. Why would there be a retention bonuses to begin with? Employers keep the valuable emplyees by paying them enough salary. Retention bonus is just something they have created for whatever reason, but should be just part of their base salary. Stock options, RSUs, this and that bonuses, whatever incentives, they just create these so that they can get paid more somehow. 

Yes, shareholders vote. Publicly owned companies have no single owner. Professional CEOs do just that, to satisfy those who have influence to the company - major shareholders, and borad of directors - who are clueless on what business the company is running, and their own gains. In the end they are all in it together. In the end those who get hurt by bad decisions are just normal employees and small investors, or just ordinary persons like us.

CEOs todays are, many of them are, evil. I can assure you of this myself, as I have witnessed this first hand more than once. They have no dignity or pride. I rarely see CEOs who I would consider leaders of today, those who can be respected by many for what they are.


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## UnderTheSea (Jun 2, 2008)

The retention bonus is a joke. The number of unemployed they could easily be replaced and probably at lower salaries.

I do play around in the market looking for the diamond in the rough. 50% of my profile is with small companies looking to hit it big some day (pharmaceutical, gold, copper, diamond & oil explorations and a few tech companies). I'm not in it for short term gains with this type of profile.

One thing that really ticks me off is that I just received my daughters RESP info for 2008 and it lost a significant amount of money. I will be talking to my broker in a couple of weeks about that. My RRSP and Pension funds actually made significant amounts of money for 2008. It's definitely a crazy market and understand why many are sitting on the side lines right now.


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## atclarkson (Jan 22, 2009)

Theres alot of crap out there right now, but we'll get thru it lol

As for the stock market decline, there were many people who called it. It was a bubble, like the tech boom, and it had to pop sometime. So, I don't feel it was completely "something wrong"



> The current stock market erased 20year gain in overnight.


5 years gain in 4 months is more like it... (If we're talking S&P/TSX)

There was this whole credit crisis, people started getting scared, started selling, the market went down, the media blew it WAY out of proportion, more people sold, the market went down some more, people saw that the market went down, they got scared, they sold some more, the market went down some more, so on and so forth. The market goes down when people sell. Supply and Demand. The market will not go back up until investor confidence is restored and people reinvest all that money they have been hiding under their mattresses.

As for the big banks and the extravagant salaries, I do have an issue with that, but James brings up a good point. If someone is willing to pay you that, and someone else will pay you more, surely you are worth it, no? I like to think, in the same position, as a CEO, I would be able to say "I am going to work for the next year with no pay, I want that money to help the company stay afloat." If many of these guys did that, these companies might not be in as much trouble.

But, speaking of overpaid.... lets talk about athletes  haha. at least these guys are doing more than shooting a puck or hitting a ball.

I mean no disrespect in any of what I've posted above, in case it comes across as such conix.

I know there are many people who have made money recently, be it by shorting stocks, or buying little companies that are making jumps. There will be millionaires made over the next couple of years, believe me. All these undervalued companies will climb back up again. Put your money in Fundamentally sound companies, and you'll be very happy with yourself in a few years.

Underthesea- This is what ticks me off about brokers. they are paid no matter how their portfolios do. Paid better when it does well, but they don't lose out if the portfolio loses money. I feel the compensation should be based on how well your portfolio does, not how you client asset base....

bah.


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## conix67 (Jul 27, 2008)

atclarkson said:


> Theres alot of crap out there right now, but we'll get thru it lol
> 
> As for the stock market decline, there were many people who called it. It was a bubble, like the tech boom, and it had to pop sometime. So, I don't feel it was completely "something wrong"


Unfortunate truth is that this bubble is no ordinary bubble. What's scary is that it's not clear if all bubbles have popped yet.



> 5 years gain in 4 months is more like it... (If we're talking S&P/TSX)


Clearly I was exaggerating. If you look at Dow Jones Industrial average, this year Feb it closed at 7000 on one day. The first time it reached 7000 on close was Apr 1997, about 12 years ago.



> There was this whole credit crisis, people started getting scared, started selling, the market went down, the media blew it WAY out of proportion, more people sold, the market went down some more, people saw that the market went down, they got scared, they sold some more, the market went down some more, so on and so forth. The market goes down when people sell. Supply and Demand. The market will not go back up until investor confidence is restored and people reinvest all that money they have been hiding under their mattresses.


I'm sure many people understand fundamentals of market, supply and demand, etc. Just what brings market up or down? If you know what and why, you'll be a millionaire overnight.

What exactly is the credit crisis everyone is talking about? Don't you think something is *just not right* about the whole thing? The sub prime mortgage situation, I personally didn't even know that existed, when I learned about it, I was outraged it was even allowed. This was clearly allowed by US government to generate perceived wealth within the country, and everyone was fooled that they were richer than they really are.



> As for the big banks and the extravagant salaries, I do have an issue with that, but James brings up a good point. If someone is willing to pay you that, and someone else will pay you more, surely you are worth it, no? I like to think, in the same position, as a CEO, I would be able to say "I am going to work for the next year with no pay, I want that money to help the company stay afloat." If many of these guys did that, these companies might not be in as much trouble.
> 
> But, speaking of overpaid.... lets talk about athletes  haha. at least these guys are doing more than shooting a puck or hitting a ball.
> 
> I mean no disrespect in any of what I've posted above, in case it comes across as such conix.


I have problem with *overpaid*, not paid a lot. If the person's skills are worth millions, or billions, he/she can be paid that much.

At least professional athletes must posses *talent* and *work ethics* to keep them in top shape to compete.

Overpaid execs, the problem is that they are *not* invited with the pay. They get hired, renew the contract with better compensation. This is their strategy. Board of directors approve all that, major shareholders see a good plan (no guarantee), so as long as you can market your ideas with smooth talk and technical jargon that these people hardly understands, you are successful! When things don't go according to plan (usually it's this way), they will come up with all kinds of excuses to put together a very convincing back up plan, etc. Things repeat, and by the time it's too late, the company goes burst, they take money and leave, while leaving thousands or tens of thousands of people out of work. So there you have it, they are not responsible for anything, because it's a public company, share holders take responsibility when things go wrong, when things go well, they claim all the credit.

Who in the right mind will spend over a million decorating his office when his company is about to go bankrupt, and then order to pay execs being fired millions in bonuses?? The funny thing is this did happen, and just like roaches in a building, if you see one, there are thousands others that you don't see.

The media is not covering true story. They are not telling everything because you don't want to put general public in panic mode.

Today US federal reserve announced they will pump out one trillion US dollars into the market. Just where do they get all this money? This quickly caused devaluation of US currency.

Certainly China won't be happy with their two thousand billion dollar foreign reserve.

Anyway, I really hope this is just an ordinary market downturn. However, I've not seen anything like this for 20 years, and that's scary.


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## atclarkson (Jan 22, 2009)

> I'm sure many people understand fundamentals of market, supply and demand, etc. Just what brings market up or down? If you know what and why, you'll be a millionaire overnight.
> 
> What exactly is the credit crisis everyone is talking about? Don't you think something is *just not right* about the whole thing? The sub prime mortgage situation, I personally didn't even know that existed, when I learned about it, I was outraged it was even allowed. This was clearly allowed by US government to generate perceived wealth within the country, and everyone was fooled that they were richer than they really are.


Buying and selling brings the market up and down.... not sure what you're getting at here. Knowing when and where those investors are gonna buy or sell is the magic key.

The sub prime bit was caused by lending to ppl who did not rightly deserve credit. This in itself was wrong. It was done because the housing market was booming, and so most mortages were much less than the values of their houses (an easy profit for the bank if they default) the issue came when housing prices started falling and it was then easier to walk away from your mortgage because it is worth so much less than you have invested, or less than you owe on it. In the US you can default on a mortgage and it wont haunt you for years like it will in Canada. Good reason to buy down there now.... if you pick up something cheap, and the market doesnt rebound.... you can default on it, and never hear of it again. Terrible way of doing things, but thats what started this mess.



> I have problem with *overpaid*, not paid a lot. If the person's skills are worth millions, or billions, he/she can be paid that much.
> 
> At least professional athletes must posses *talent* and *work ethics* to keep them in top shape to compete.


I don't care how many baskets you can sink, or homeruns you can hit in a year, season or row, there is NO WAY that is worth millions a year. I can guarantee you, these guys would play the same game for 50 or a hundred grand a year, if salaries never got this out of hand.



> Overpaid execs, the problem is that they are *not* invited with the pay. They get hired, renew the contract with better compensation. This is their strategy. Board of directors approve all that, major shareholders see a good plan (no guarantee), so as long as you can market your ideas with smooth talk and technical jargon that these people hardly understands, you are successful! When things don't go according to plan (usually it's this way), they will come up with all kinds of excuses to put together a very convincing back up plan, etc. Things repeat, and by the time it's too late, the company goes burst, they take money and leave, while leaving thousands or tens of thousands of people out of work. So there you have it, they are not responsible for anything, because it's a public company, share holders take responsibility when things go wrong, when things go well, they claim all the credit.


I don't think they should be paid all this money either. Again, they'd do it for less. But, if they truely are doing the company well, then pay them well. but a mil a year.... again, outrageous.



> Who in the right mind will spend over a million decorating his office when his company is about to go bankrupt, and then order to pay execs being fired millions in bonuses?? The funny thing is this did happen, and just like roaches in a building, if you see one, there are thousands others that you don't see.


make no sense to me either. did you hear obama is gonna tax all bonuses from companies that got bailouts at 90%?  that'll teach em. (And get some money back asap)



> The media is not covering true story. They are not telling everything because you don't want to put general public in panic mode.


They're telling enough to screw things up tho!



> Today US federal reserve announced they will pump out one trillion US dollars into the market. Just where do they get all this money? This quickly caused devaluation of US currency.
> 
> Certainly China won't be happy with their two thousand billion dollar foreign reserve.


great great great grandkids will be paying for this stuff....



> Anyway, I really hope this is just an ordinary market downturn. However, I've not seen anything like this for 20 years, and that's scary.


There's no good reason it shouldn't come back, but there's always japan....


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## conix67 (Jul 27, 2008)

atclarkson said:


> Buying and selling brings the market up and down.... not sure what you're getting at here. Knowing when and where those investors are gonna buy or sell is the magic key.


Just what exactly *is* investing? It is simply betting money on things that will give you something in return, eventually more money than you put down originally. Can there be wealth generated by just having bunch of investors investing? No, in the end someone actually need to generate the wealth, and it gets shared by everyone. When the industry is full of these firms generating wealth, everything just works! When these firms hit a brick wall, things collapse because it just doesn't work anymore!

A good example is this automarket crisis, which is no different from subprime mortgage situation. Their business model is based on ever expanding market place. If it stops expanding, they're in trouble. But they cannot allow it, they need to keep pushing the market, generating new market segment or other ways to squeeze the market to buy more. When they run out of options, after inflating market size to a certain point, the bubble pops and supply/demand situation stablizes.



> The sub prime bit was caused by lending to ppl who did not rightly deserve credit. This in itself was wrong. It was done because the housing market was booming, and so most mortages were much less than the values of their houses (an easy profit for the bank if they default) the issue came when housing prices started falling and it was then easier to walk away from your mortgage because it is worth so much less than you have invested, or less than you owe on it. In the US you can default on a mortgage and it wont haunt you for years like it will in Canada. Good reason to buy down there now.... if you pick up something cheap, and the market doesnt rebound.... you can default on it, and never hear of it again. Terrible way of doing things, but thats what started this mess.


The housing market boom did not occur naturally. The perceived wealth promoted housing boom. Along with availability of subprime mortgage, there are other things such as mortgage interest being tax deductable in US that promotes house purchases. The problem is, things were not prepared for the situation where house prices went down. No, banks don't want people to default on mortgages, it just doesn't help them at all.



> I don't care how many baskets you can sink, or homeruns you can hit in a year, season or row, there is NO WAY that is worth millions a year. I can guarantee you, these guys would play the same game for 50 or a hundred grand a year, if salaries never got this out of hand.


I personally don't watch any prof. sports anymore. Some are interesting but I'm not a sports nut. I also feel that many are overpaid, but they are effectively paid by people supporting the sports. At least when they perform poorly, they are gone. At least they don't ask for government bail outs.



> I don't think they should be paid all this money either. Again, they'd do it for less. But, if they truely are doing the company well, then pay them well. but a mil a year.... again, outrageous.


A million a year is not an outrageous amount. Lehman brother's CEO made 71 million dollars last year. I forget exact amount but his total compensation over 9 year period was several hundred millions!

That's a real easy money for putting 100+ year old company into bankruptcy in just matter of years. How do these guys justify just how much they should get paid? Clearly there's a loophole in current system.



> make no sense to me either. did you hear obama is gonna tax all bonuses from companies that got bailouts at 90%?  that'll teach em. (And get some money back asap)


Not sure if this will be successful, but it should be more like 100% tax rate, rather than 90%.

Grand grand kids are not going to be able to pay this back. You can see this now because they simply don't know what's going to happen next few years. If anything, they will simply continue what they've been doing, printing more money..


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## ertiokls (Feb 29, 2020)

I am new in trading. And so far, I do not risk to trade assets that I do not know well. I mean I cannot correctly forecast price fluctuations for commodities and shares. So I trade only currency pairs. The mechanism of prices here is much clearer. But I always take care of blacklisted forex brokers tradersunion.com/brokers-blacklist/forex/. With them, no strategy works.


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