Livestock Trading Thread: Baa or better

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Livestock Trading Thread: Baa or better

MMD3: May 16, 2006; Montmartre -> Portland

So I know virtually nil about the stock market other than the fact that I've been watching the numbers on my iPhone go up for the stock I have through my companies employee stock purchase program.

I happen to work for Nike which has been nice for me the last couple of years. I set aside 10% of my paycheck for ESPP and have just been watching it grow with my intention being to use it as a nest egg for a downpayment on a home at some point in the next couple of years.

I realize of course that it's probably a horrible idea to not be diversified at all so I want to start being smarter about my stock and stop using it as my primary savings account.

I was thinking my first step would be to transfer everything that I have that qualifies for long term cap gains out of the Mellon account I have through work and over to Etrade or something similar. Mellon doesn't really offer any tools and I'm limited to just being able to sell stock and have them cut me a check or sit on it as far as I can tell.

Is Etrade the best way to go to start learning wtf I'm doing? I figured it'd be nice because they have the mobile apps and what not and at least I'd get some analytics tools to start comparing other stocks and learn what's going on. I don't have any intentions of being a day-trader or gambling on high-volatility stuff but I want to make sure I start off learning with something that will ease me into it.

Does anybody have some good advice for how I should best approach this? I'm also thinking I should probably find a financial advisor/planner at some point to sit down with and tell me how I can be more fiscally responsible.

Thoughts? Thanks in advance.

# ¿ May 9, 2012 05:25

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 21:42

MMD3: May 16, 2006; Montmartre -> Portland

bam thwok posted:

Check out the long-term savings thread, since I think that's more of what you're looking for. You set this pun up, so I'm going to knock it down; you should not keep your nest eggs in one basket.

yeah, I'll post there as well... I guess what I was really hoping to get out of posting in this thread is just what tools people use to manage their finances, and I know that I can put my money in mutual funds or whatever else once I have it transferred out of my Mellon account and into something like eTrade. I would be diversifying probably 90% of it for medium-long term savings and placing the remainder of it into something more short term that would give me a chance to learn the market a bit.

Guess I thought people could give me some advice on if eTrade is what I'm looking for here or if there are other services that are better suited. I certainly realize having all of my savings in my company's stock isn't the wisest thing which is why I'm coming to ask for advice to get it out.

# ¿ May 9, 2012 17:30

MMD3: May 16, 2006; Montmartre -> Portland

So I'm a stock newbie. I have a bunch of shares from the company I used to work for, that company happens to be Nike.

The site that my shares are held with, Computershare, is kind of lovely I feel but it works for my needs which are just checking transaction history, getting tax information, and putting in sell orders.

I put in a limit order (first time I've ever done a limit) on Friday the 25th, at $123/share. It took them 5 days to process the limit order for some reason (well I suppose 3 business days) and this morning they sold my shares at $123/share.

Now.. Friday the market closed with NKE at ~$125/share, Monday it opened with them at ~$124/share. I guess I don't understand limit orders correctly but my presumption was that they would fulfill the order so long as the shares were at $123 or higher when I put in the order. I really just put a limit on it to ensure that if the price tanked overnight I wouldn't be stuck selling at $115 or something. Is $2/share that much? no, not really, but it's still frustrating that I don't seem to know how limit orders work.

Can anybody explain to me that i'm a doofus so I can shake this feeling that Computershare is taking advantage of me by taking 3 business days (an eternity in stock market time) to do something with my order?

# ¿ Sep 30, 2015 17:45

MMD3: May 16, 2006; Montmartre -> Portland

Kal Torak posted:

The order probably executed on Friday. Stock market orders take three days to settle.

mrmcd posted:

There's all kinds of games and fine print they can play in terms of when they execute your specific order, so long as they meet the specific instructions you entered, which is to give you $123/share or better, which they did.

Looking at the pricing data for NKE for Sept 25:
code:
09/25/20151
Open 23.125
High 125.95
Low 122.7
Close 125
Volume 18,479,600
So the stock traded around your limit price and they likely filled you at that price when it hit that level. If you want $125 enter $125 as your limit.

The three days is probably because of the standard T+3 clearing time, which is how long all equity trades tale to clear in the US.

Also you seem to be confusing limit orders with stop-loss / stop-limit orders, which is the order type used to "protect" you in case the price moves drastically, like you said. If the price had moved to $116 then you would still own the stock because 116<125.

ahhh, thanks for the clarification... I don't think computershare allows for any way to do a trailing stop limit, I guess next time I'm better off just setting the sell order and praying that when the market opens for the next day they execute the order quickly.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2015 20:05

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Livestock Trading Thread: Baa or better