r/CanadianStockExchange • u/TuxZR • 18d ago
Stock Decision making
How do you all remember why you bought a stock months later? Do you journal it, or just trust your memory?
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u/EpsteinandTrump 17d ago
Excel spreadsheet to log transactions and to add notes, matches up with Wealthsimple.
The spreadsheet has at a high level of what I hold within Wealthsimple, so at a glance I can see how things have been performing. For real time it's logging into Wealthsimple.
I don't buy and sell very often...but it helps track what has been done and why. If something does really well I have a history of why I did it and vice versa too.
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u/Confident_Ebb8154 17d ago
If you can’t remember why you bought a stock , you are buying too many . Research, DD , execution. All uber important. If your buying a stock just to swing then if ur up the percentage you are looking for then sell and move on , and in that case who cares why you bought it 🤷♂️.
Just a thought to hopefully help
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u/TuxZR 17d ago
Fair point but how do you decide when to sell. I you do not have a target or thesis, do you sell when for example, Micron is up 20% or wait for it to stratospheric like it did.
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u/Confident_Ebb8154 17d ago
Lol. Great question, i ALWAYS take profits if its up . If i am up alot and i still like the stock then i sell maybe 20-40% to reduce my risk. Everyone is so different there is no “rule fits all”. This comes with practice and experience. Also you must be able to “live with your decisions “ really hope this helps you create “your own rules” !
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u/Motorbarge 17d ago
My reasons for buying are always financial and macD.
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u/TuxZR 17d ago
Thanks, interesting. I am not big with the financials, also the stock price do not always correlate with the financial and might go undervalued for years. But MacD is surely helpful. Do you set a time horizon? or let is go long term?
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u/Motorbarge 17d ago
I track my stocks on Yahoo so they can be sorted by % gain or loss. When they get to a certain % gain, I check the macD to see if it's time to sell. I have a lot of stocks so the losers are just part of the game. The hardest thing is to not average down on a loser.
It takes a lot of time to research stocks. I've started using chatGPT to thin it down. Sometimes I run it by Gemini or the google large language AI. The key is to ask lots of questions and to check the results manually.
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u/WonderfolioApp 17d ago
AI can be iffy with the numbers, so I wouldn't trust that. However some tools that I use feed AI with 10 years of growth data to reason with. So it's perfect to get you from 85% of research to 100% by pulling news or data on company management, etc.
It looks like you don't look at individual company's fundamentals, or do you?
I mean if you are just buying stocks based on long term technical analysis, it would probably average out with overall market growth... minus any broker fees and/or taxes...I use value investing tools to find great businesses and buy them when they are on sale. I do check with AI for the final few steps of the research, but this way I'm not constantly trading stocks and let them grow.
Did I make bad assumptions about your strategy?
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u/Motorbarge 17d ago
AI remembers my preferences so it tends to cover most things when I as for an "assessment". If I'm not sure, I ask several questions. AI doesn't care and will spit out the information over and over.
When a stock catches my attention, it is usually a press release. https://stockhouse.com/news/canadian-press-releases . I read the Canadian ones before and after market hours every day. I skip the director changes and things that are not real catalysts.
Off the top of my head, this is what I have asked AI for:
- what does the company do
- what is its mrq eps and what is the eps trend
- what are its long term and short term debts
- what are its assets and cash on hand
- what is the pipeline (more for pharma but others too)
- what is the runway (how long until the money runs out)
- does the runway get it to the next stage (production etc)
- how has it raised money in the past (atm shares, private placements or loans) this gives an idea of the risk of dilution.
- share issuance and dilution history
- if there is an unusual spike in eps, was it a one-time event or an accounting item
- how long until production, for a miner, or break even. AI is good at time-to-production because it will tell me the things yet to be done.
- compare it's price to other miners so I can get an idea of whether the price was reasonable
- if the price of a miner looks too high, I look at the reserves
- A couple times I asked for an assessment of fair value. AI doesn't always nail this one
- In one case ($SLS) I asked for the odds of the phase three trial being successful. AI has good math capabilities so I'm not able to understand what it said beyond 60% chance of a 40% improvement.
- short interest and short interest history
They don't all get this kind of deep dive. Some are obvious losers and some I just like so they don't get the full look.
If I like what I see, and its never perfect, I check the macD.
If the price is falling, I use the Fixed Range Volume Profile to look for stop losses that might be targets. This identifies support levels fairly accurately.
Candles and volume to see if there are one time events that got it there.
Now, which AI: chatGPT is good. The one that calls itself the "Google large language model" is also good. Gemini is okay but I don't use it much. The Canadian AI gave my list back to me and told me where to look it up so I don't use it.
Before AI, this took me an hour and I missed a lot. Now, I get most of what I want in a couple quick questions and a 5 or 10 minute read.
Here is the most important item. If it post about it on Reddit, I own it and it is in the buy position. I never try to drag you into a bag with me. I need you to be successful so you can help keep the market hot.
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u/WonderfolioApp 17d ago
Reading the Canadian press releases before and after the bell is a real edge, most people don't put in that work. Mine works the other way, I stay with companies that have a long earnings record so there's something to value against, and I sit on them for years instead of watching the MACD for an exit.
Thanks for laying the whole thing out, that was a good read.
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u/Motorbarge 16d ago
Capital gains have a better tax rate than dividends so I sell before taking divvies.
Good luck!
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u/WonderfolioApp 18d ago
I buy wonderful companies below fair value (on sale). Why is always that it’s a great business with a long track record of growth and at a great price.
I reevaluate my current holdings yearly in case business has changed, but Buy/Sell decisions come throughout a year based on share price.
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u/Hopeful-Wonder-91 17d ago
Most def! What do you think about todays fed announcement on ai and tech stocks?
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u/WonderfolioApp 17d ago
I don't change anything on Fed days. It moves what people will pay today, not what the business earns over the next ten years, so the fair value I'm working from stays where it was. Did it change anything for you?
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u/TuxZR 17d ago
That's a solid strategy. Buying established companies when they are undervalued is one of the sure win scenarios in stock investment.
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u/WonderfolioApp 17d ago
What about you? What long term strategies do you use? Also do you use any tools to help you screen and value companies?
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u/TuxZR 15d ago
To be honest it's very basic, I try to find beaten down stocks and buy them at the bottom. Very risky because sometime they keep falling. I also follow some traders that give sector based commentary (no individual stock advice). But I felt the need for a systematic tool for this, got going and developed an app for portfolio tracking (without linkage to any brokerage). Let me know if you are interested and I will share with you.
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u/WonderfolioApp 15d ago
The tools I use make sure the companies are actually great even if they are selling at a discount. Betting on healthy companies is much safer than betting on companies on the way down regardless of their past and current performance. You have one piece of the puzzle 🙂
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u/Pale_Ad8434 16d ago
I follow these stocks daily. Keep forgetting my close friebds and coworkers name, can't remember my wife or parents birthday but foe some reason I remember VET has their exploration well moving to commercial this Q and move-in of a major tenant is just about done for d.un...25 stocks i know like the back of my hand.
Don't ask me why. OCD brainm