Stock Markets Exposed - What do you think of my mid-caps stock investing strategy?

What do you think of my mid-caps stock investing strategy?

I have been watching the stock market for months and done my research, but I am only 18 and don't understand enough about inner-company economics and finances to make good decisions based on that (I will be a finance and management major, though, so maybe at a later time). On the other hand, I am great at technical analysis. I figure since mid-caps better returns than large caps, and are not as risky as small and nano caps, I fill focus on them (I just set up my Roth IRA). My plan is to research and use my technical analysis tools and indicators (I know they are not extremely effective, but I only need to be right maybe 70% of the time for it to be worthwhile), and stick to mid-caps that are listed on the S&P 500. I figure that these hand-chosen mid-caps have the best finance records, industries, and since they are hand chosen by experts, they should increase my rates of return. What do you think? Thanks!

Public Comments

I'm not a huge fan of technical analysis and think that if you are going to invest in a company for the intermediate to long term you need to understand their business. If you are a short term trader, then sometimes charts are useful to determine short term pops, but realize that they are trades, not investments, and handle them accordingly. tba
Good luck! Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Mid-caps probably offer a fair amount of reward for the risk you are taking. I am concerned about your timing, with a recession in full swing. I applaud you for using a Roth IRA. At your age I doubt you will get much mileage out of tax deferred accounts.
um, Kevin ... sorry to burst your bubble here and the typical professional stock trader is right maybe 40% of the time, at best. Mid-caps, by definition, aren't in the SP500 -- those are large caps. May I suggest that you yet have much to learn and that the places to begin are with your trading/investing psychology and money management. The details of picking when to buy and when to sell, and what, are far down on the list of tasks. GL
If your strategy work for you, by all means continue using it. I discovered I only have to check a few things to get the results I'm looking for: I check the overall market's trend. The ticker symbol's Sector and Industry trends. I note any chart patterns. A few other technicals. ATR Price Volume News Earnings Announcement Date. Whether or not Splits are occurring Whether or not Dividends were declared. For options there are a few key factors. I plan the entry, catastrophic exit, target and how ling I'm going to be in the trade. I do this for each trade and each different strategy I use. Plain and simple, Nothing fancy. Thanks for asking your Q! I enjoyed answering it! VTY, Ron Berue Yes, that is my real last name!
Technicals work fantastic...if you have a trading plan. Know your support and resistance, and don't take big losses and use trendlines to understand when to take profits. Technicals work great if you use larger time frames for longer term trades and shorter term charts for shorter term trades. I trade for a living and I'm only successful on about 60 percent of my trades. The key is understanding when to get out of the position. Good luck! Matt
sp500 is not mid cap..its large cap. There is an s&p midcap index, but I can't recall the symbol...yahoo finance seach will find it for you. mid cap is usually under 10 billion market cap, above 1 billion, at least that's my preferred range. Try MDY as a proxy for the midcaps....its collapsing with the rest of the major indexes.
DON'T DO IT!!! Get out. And stay out. Complete Report: Office of the Comptroller of Currency: 3Q 2007: http://www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/release/2007-137a.pdf Democracy requires an informed electorate. If you agree, please copy and paste this to whomever you wish. And by all means warn your friends and family. What's really going on: http://bp2.blogger.com/_H2DePAZe2gA/R9sT8yG-HKI/AAAAAAAAA7k/A-lM2Kotng/s1600-h/OCCpg1.png or http://tinyurl.com/2p5qyk That's right: $91 Trillion in derivatives, financed by 1 1/4 trillion dollars of investor assets. That's almost double the total global GDP (approx. $48 Trillion) for JP Morgan alone. Funny money. IOU's. Another $34 Trillion for CitiBank and $32 Trillion for Bank of America, each with $1 1/4 Trillion backing their bets. Original Source: http://www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/release/2007-137a.pdf And how they got away with it: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080328/derivatives_association_lobbying.html?.v=1 or http://tinyurl.com/3b8vjn As Paul Harvery would say, "And now for the rest of the story." These are very interesting looking numbers. And very revealing. While it's true that existing single family home sales were up 2.8% month to month-- they were down 22.9% year to year. How does that old saw go? Figures don't lie; but liars figure? Existing Home Sales: Feb 08 (preliminary): Single Family Only for Printing (click on the PDF Adobe icon): http://www.realtor.org/Research.nsf/files/singlefamilyreport.pdf/ Things are going to get worse, too: U.S. Economic Outlook 2008: http://tinyurl.com/pehzp or http://www.realtor.org/Research.nsf/files/CurrentForecast.pdf/FILE/CurrentForecast.pdf And commercial real estate looks like it's starting to go downhill too: Commercial Real Estate: http://tinyurl.com/yw9hf5 or http://www.globalindices.standardandpoors.com/data/pdf/spgra_values_031237.xls Warehouse and Desert Mountain West have already headed south.