All posts by Saro

How to Open Up a TD Waterhouse Active Trader Account

Investing, , , , , ,

I have been practicing day trading for the past six months on TD’s Active Trader demo platform and finally decided to open up a real cash account. While opening up the account was not difficult, it did require a number of steps to be performed before actually having access to the platform. You can’t sign up to the Active Trader platform directly: you must have a TD Discount Brokerage account before. There are a number of reasons TD does this, and I will detail them later on.

First thing’s first, you must create a TD Waterhouse Discount Brokerage account. This is free, but it will take up to 2 weeks for the application to go through. In my case, I found out that TD contacted my bank for authorization and validity purposes.

Once your Discount Brokerage account is created and ready to be used, you must then call the Active Trader team via telephone to register. They will ask you a few questions to make sure the platform is for you. From what I recall, they asked me questions such as my experience level, if I have tried the demo platform, how much will I be transferring to TD and if I have any proof of executing 150 trades in a quarter. The latter question is a bit important, as TD will charge you platform fees if you trade 30 times or less per month (I think a 99$ fee per month). Also, the actual trading fees will vary, from 7 to 10 dollars depending on your volume. They expect you to trade at least once a day.

In my case, whether I was getting charged 7 or 10 dollars per trade did not matter, as my current discount brokerage account at my primary bank charges me 28$ per trade! The savings here are obvious if I go with TD. Among other reasons, I chose TD because their trading platform is highly customizable (you can put in your own values for MACD, EMA, RSI and Stochastic charts).

For those who have not tried the Active Trader platform yet, I highly recommend a demo/dummy account. For about two weeks, you can play with the platform and see if it’s right for you. Compare it to the other financial institutions offerings, such as RBC, NBC and BMO. In my mind, TD’s Active Trader is the best out there, and I can’t wait to start my real trades in January!

Your Credit History Matters

Investing, , , ,

There is a big lack of knowledge when it comes to credit. In my experience, the most important thing about credit is to make sure all of your creditors are paid in full and on time. If you cannot pay in full, at least make sure that you are making your minimum payments.

Another concern of mine is why do people have 12 different credit cards, 4 different lines of credits and loans? I recommend to work with one main financial institution: to have one primary credit card and one back up credit card in case of emergency.

When someone has too much access to credit it is not a good sign to anyone who is analyzing your credit history. Having too much credit is considered a risk to financial institutions, not to mention to landlords, car dealerships and every other business out there that offers financing as a means of payment.

Most people don’t have to worry about their credit. As long as your bills are being paid in full and on time, you do not need to run a report on your history. However, if you feel that you need to see where your credit stands, it’s a good idea to run a report to prevent future problems.

There is such a thing as having too much credit! Be sure to limit it to what you need, say a $5000 primary credit card, a $10,000 line of credit and a back up credit card of $1,000. Depending on your yearly income, these values may be different to you.

An example: if your yearly gross salary is about 32,000$, then having a primary credit card at 10,000$, a secondary at 1,000$ and a line of credit at 10,000$ is perfect. As always, talk to your financial adviser if you are unsure about your credit and its history.

Majority of New Investors Fail at Day Trading

Investing

Thinking of online day trading? Don’t start before you read this post.

New investors who are eager to start day trading will most likely fail within the first few months, losing their entire savings by trading the wrong stocks, options and futures.

Here’s a startling fact: majority of people fail at trading when they first start out. Newcomers don’t spend the necessary time practicing trades on paper before they dive into online day trading world. These new investors lack the confidence and expertise to successfully pursue trading either as a part-time or full-time job.

So, what causes the newbies to fail? Basically, we can summarize it down to 3 reasons.

Not enough experience

This is a no-brainer, but quite possibly the most important one. If you decide to jump into the world of day trading and have not practiced before, then you are wasting your time. I would say trading on paper for at least a year with 10,000$ of play money is the way to go. When you are comfortable with your trades and are in the positives, then start trading with real money.

Trading with emotions

If you trade with your emotions, you are going to lose. The experts who dominate the online day trading world are emotionless and have a cold approach to trading. If you trade with anger and depression, you can kiss your money goodbye. You need to make decisions with logic and fact, and not with your heart or gut feelings.

Too much greed

When you start seeing the money rolling in, you’re going to want more and more. Greed is a good way to encourage people to make money, but it can also be one’s downfall. Charles Langford, who is a well-known day trader, always said to keep the greed in control. You should stick to one or two trades a day and call it quits. You need to be patient and let the money drip in slowly, or else you will start treating day trading as another form of gambling, which is not a good thing.

SaroPC: Designing and Customizing Your Computers

Technology, , , ,

Call me Saro; I’m your basic computer geek with a love for technology.

I’ve always had a passion for assembling custom computers. I don’t know about the rest of you geeks out there, but the fun part for me is to select the components and then put it all together. I like to think of it as a more expensive form of Lego, only components are not always interchangeable between generations. 🙂

This site aims to educate the newcomer to building computers systems, whether it’s desktops, laptops or servers, with guides and how-tos that I have put together. I want this site to cater every type of buyer out there, willing to spend a bit of time to research and discover the right components for their machine.

Sometimes, however, I will be recommending brand name computers (such as Dells) when it comes to business use (workstations and servers). Even though there is this notion that brand name computers are not customizable or upgradeable, I beg to differ. Most systems today from vendors such as Dell or HP are fully upgradeable and have long lifespans. However, most businesses buy computers and stick with them for a while (usually 3 to 5 years) and then buy brand new systems when their age starts to show.

All in all, I hope my site helps people out there in making the right choices when it comes to buying hardware. Now, on with the site!

Saro’s Day Trading Introduction

Investing

One of my latest interests today is day trading. A couple months ago, a good friend of mine who is a professional stock broker and trader recommended I look into day trading as a part-time “job”. I’m quoting the word job because the way I see it, it’s not your usual 9 to 5 setting. Day trading is something you can do on your free time, or alongside your usual everyday job (or career). You will, of course, require access to a computer with an internet connection.

One of the things that I tout on this site is passive income, so most of you are now saying “well, this isn’t exactly passive…” This is true, as you will have to be somewhat active when you execute your trades. Unlike buying stocks and “going long”, buying & selling stocks can take anywhere from minutes to hours within the same day. This method is called intra-day trading and is what I am currently doing.

If you have some extra money lying around in the bank and you rather have complete control over it, day trading is the way to go in my opinion. Rather than dump your money in a mutual fund that may or may not grow, trading will definitely give you some nice income.

On the topic of risk: yes, there is some risk involved, but it’s actually quite minimal if you know what you are doing. Day trading isn’t rocket science, but it does require some analysis on charts. The practice to analyze chart data is called “technical analysis” and it is something that everyone can do and master with a bit of practice. To further minimize risk, you can put “stops” on your trades: when a stock falls below your minimum, your trading system can automatically sell your equities and leave you with little losses.

In the upcoming weeks, I will be detailing my techniques and methods I have learned over the past few months that are working quite well for me. I will also go further into detail on how to start and what to do when it comes to day trading, along with the questions that most people ask when they first start. When I first started, I was completely lost, but my friend helped me get started on the right foot.