Eighth Week Stock Analysis

I sold 313 shares of Microsoft Corp. at $60.53. In the years coming the revenue for microsoft is looking to continue to increase. But in the sense of this game, it no longer made sense to be holding the stock. In the next quarter analysts are predicting that the stocks prices will waver moving forward into 2017. But once 2017 hits the overall growth of the company will be greater than they have ever seen. Currently, the least successful aspect of the company is the personal computing sector, accounting for 45% of the company. The numbers in this sector are what is effecting their overall gain in each quarter. As the year coming they are predicting that the personal computing will become more successful, thus bring the rest of the company with it to new heights.

I bought 363 shares of Colgate Palmolive Co. on October 27th when it was at $70.63. The stock had a 3.5% drop in the third quarter from the previous year. The stock was on a fairly steady climb, so when I saw that it has dropped a greater amount I took the risk in investing, while assuming that the drop would be over and the increase would continue. Analysts are assuming that there will be a drop in the sale by the end of the fourth quarter, but that before this occurs there will be a increase. The stock has now moved up to $71.26. 

Seventh Week Stock Analysis

Last week I had invested in 1030 shares at $13.77. The stock rise that I had anticipated when investing in the stock was correct, the stock had raised to $14.13. I began to see a decreasing trend over the course of the day previous, and therefore decided to sell the shares that I had bought, making approximately $300.00. 

This week I chose to invest in 313 shares of Microsoft at $57.21. I had researched the trends that were circling about Microsoft in the news, and found that their is anticipation for more potential in the company. Microsoft has announced an expanded partnership with SAP to provide public cloud services.

Sixth Week Stock Analysis

This week I bought 1030 shares of Old National Bank for $13.77. The stock has now gone up to $13.89. I have made a total of $127.21. I decided to invest in this stock due to the fact that this week I learned that banks are commonly a steady investment. The money invested does not range at high rates very often. I saw that the stock had been at a low point, therefore I took the risk with the idea that it would begin to rise. Although the amount of money that I have made thus far is not a high amount, I am anticipating that early next week it will continue to rise at a steady state. In the last quarter, many investment management firms such as Legal General Group, have been boosting their shares. Therefore, I am anticipating that there is insider information not available to the public, that each of these companies has a word in.

Fifth Week Stock Analysis

This past week I sold BioTime Inc. when it reached $3.90. Give or take one to two cents this is the highest price that it has reached since I sold it. Therefore, I believe that with this stock I made the right choice to sell. I also sold Western Digital Corp. at $59.70. Since then the stock has gone to $58.09. Therefore, I also believe that I made a great choice to sell at that time.

This week I have also shorted NUGT. Shortly after I shorted NUGT there was a quick drop in the stock price, and then it began to rise, therefore I covered the stock at $12.31, after shorting at $12.61. Now looking at the trends that the stock has gone to in the rest of the week I see that I should have waited to cover the stock, as it has now dropped to $11.65.

I had invest in JNUG last week, with the thought that the stocks would be rising early this week. This was not the case, all oil stocks have gone down drastically. I have now lost $12,602.  I am hoping to make money with the rise when they begin to move back up.

Fourth Week Stock Analysis

This past week I have invested in two different stocks; BioTime Inc., and Western Digital Corp.

Western Digital Corp. is a company based in American named one of the largest computer hard drive manufacturers in the world. I invested in the stock at $58.94 and it has now raised to $59.05. Earlier in the week I had read an article speaking about the demand for smartphones, PC and game console applications. I had read that the company is expecting a modest level of pre-tax profit for the next six months. The stock has been fluctuating since that day, but with todays news article the stocks have began to rise at a steady pace. Barclay's has issued a note to investors in which it is replacing Apple for Western Digital as the new IT Hardware top pick. It has been stated that PC and storage dynamics are much better than expected, and the stocks should continue on an upward trend.

Western Digital Corp. Stock Chart

 BioTime Inc. is a company involved in clinical-stage biotechnology in the field of regenerative medication. I invested in the stock at $3.83 and it has now dropped to $3.70. On September 27th, the day that I invested in the stock the trends showed that there was a significantly higher amount of trades made on the stock than was expected. The stock gained 4.47% that day. I was anticipating that the company would continue on this upward trend, with the success of their human embryonic stem cell and induced pluripotent stem cell technology. 

BioTime Inc. Stock Chart

Third Week Stock Analysis

This week I reflected back on some of the stocks that I had originally invested in at the beginning of my stock experience. I found that many of these stocks have gone up. For example, I bought GoPro a little less than one month ago at $14.97. I sold the stock September 16th at $13.61. This caused me to lose a significant amount of money, but I was not happy with the fact that the stock had not immediately gone up. Today, the stock has moved up to $17.15. I can now see the benefits of holding onto a stock for a longer period of time, if I stayed in this stock, and many other stocks which have experience a similar scenario, I would currently have gained money overall rather than losing it.

Early in the week, I had decided that it was time to get rid of each stock that I was having difficulty with. Sadly, this decision turned out to be another negative. First Commonwealth Financial Corporation (FCF) was one of these stocks. I had bought it at $10.32 and sold it at $10.05.

As you can see above, FCF has raised from when I had sold it. If I had stayed in the stock longer I would not have lost as much money. 

I have invested in 3M Co, DuPont, D. R. Horton, Thompson Reuters Corporation, and Ultra Gold Miners. Each of these companies are industrial based. As stated in my pervious blog, I have began to do more research about the companies that I invest in before decided to invest in them. Each of these stocks also contained the same types of trends throughout the week. I bought them before their peeks, and once they hit their peak they went through a constant decrease. As aforementioned, I am going to try to stay in the stocks for a longer period of time, while following trying to follow their business plans, in hopes that they will raise over time and create a greater profit for my portfolio. 

The only stock that I am currently making money from in my portfolio is 3M Co. I bought the stock at the appropriate time when it was at a low, and even though it hit it's peak at the beginning of the week, it did not decrease all the way down to the point when I bought it. 

Second Week Stock Analysis

As seen the image below, we can see that to start off the week the market was at a low point, as three of the top companies were at a low. As the week progressed the trends lines wavered a lot, but Nasdaq moved up the highest percentage. 

Nasdaq is shown in blue, the DOW is shown in green, S&P is shown in purple

To try and improve my knowledge for this past week I have focused more on following the trends within the news. I have been trying to decode the wording of the specialists in the stock exchange world, in hopes to find hints leading to greatness. This week I did more research than transactions. The market is more difficult to understand than I first anticipated.

On the transactions that I have made within the past week a made a lot of mistakes. If I had been more patient with the stocks I could have made more money. For example, I sold Western Refining Inc. at $27.15, now the stock has gone up to almost $29.00. I found that I was losing a lot of money and not finding ways to regain that money. Therefore, I was discouraged in the world of stocks.

This coming week I am planning on focusing more on researching stocks, I am also going to be more patient with the trends.

Stepping into the World of Stocks

Previous to starting Mr. Whalen's virtual stock market my knowledge of stocks was very limited. I had heard of people becoming wealthy, and of some of the common stock terms and trends, but I had never paid attention to the deeper facts. Today, my knowledge of the stock market is still very limited. I have been attempting to follow trends and make decisions based on my gut feeling, but I am still very far from the true stock guru skills that Mr. Whalen has.

In attempts to learn more about the stock market, my strategy for the past two weeks has been based on trial and error. I have had few successes, but my errors are the things that have taught me more about which stocks not to invest in rather than which stock to invest in. A fair percentage of the holdings that I have bought and sold have been based off of 'word of mouth' within the classroom. I have never been introduced to the stock market, so therefore I didn't know where to start, or even how to find a decent stock. Few of these investments were successful, while a large amount were unsuccessful.

Specifically, one stock that has been successful is Sunesis Pharmaceuticals. Within the past few days I have been focusing more on the different trends between categorized sectors (e.g. pharmaceuticals, gold, oil, etc.). With Sunesis Pharmaceuticals I was lucky to catch the stock as it was plummeting. I shorted the stock when it was at it's peak just before it moved down about $5.00. This in my opinion was one of my most successful stocks, as it was the only one that I anticipated the change.

Another highly news filling stock that I have been invested in is Apple. With he release of the new iPhone 7, people were not as pleased with the outcome as they had hoped to be. Apple did not 'wow' the public. With the release of the iPhone 7 the stocks dropped drastically, and I followed the trend and shorted 311 shares at $106.92. Following approximately one day, I covered the stocks at $105.87. Although this is not a very large amount of money, I see it as a great lesson basing on tracking stocks.  Looking at the stock today (seen below), I can see that if I had stayed in the stock for a longer period of time, I would have made a greater profit.

Apple Stocks Week of Sept 6th to Sept 8th