Some people have emailed some good questions lately, so I thought I'd write up a post to let everyone know the answers.
Some asked about editing the buy and sell safes in the advanced (hidden) settings (watch the tutorial if you want to know how to get to them, but I suggest not touching them if you don't know what you're doing.)
The buy and sell safe are currently set at 10% (.1), which is what I leave them at. These values build in a safety buffer to not trigger sales or buys too frequently. I've found 10% is fine, but I'm not trading a low amount of money, so you could fiddle with this if you are currently a small investor, but I'd be really careful. I just leave it at 10% and that's fine for me.
Another question was what should the minimum trade be set to. Well, it depends on what your goals are. Personally, I set the minimum trade to either $750 (smaller positions) or $1000 (larger positions.) I'm trading some significant amounts in my stocks, but my thought process is if I can generate $1000 cash I can buy more shares on a dip. If you set this value too high you won't have any cash to buy the dips, which is the goal. You're trying to build the number of shares you have up without investing more money.
Another question was, "What if I set my cash to $0." I wouldn't do that. If you have $0 cash for a stock you are at 100% risk and that's probably not a good idea and you're leaving yourself with nothing to buy dips. If you are currently sitting at $0 cash, I'd considering selling some shares of something to create cash so you have a reserve there.
A question was asked about why Dividends increase your gain. Well, because they increase your gain! If you get a check for $350 in dividends for a stock, you're up $350. That's a gain. It's a good idea to hunt out stocks with good dividends and invest in them. Then, even when we're in a correction (like now) you're building more cash. Stocks ebb and flow, but that dividend is a good constant coming in and some dividends pay really well and can give you more cash to buy more shares. I tend to not let dividends sit too long if I can get a dip.
Another question was asked about the safes, which I forget, but I think it's important to say that I launch the app once a week. 52 times a year. Total. I launch the App during the weekend, see what the advice is, enter my trades on the weekend and then ignore the stock market during the week. If you watch the market while it's open you'll drive yourself nuts. I'm a long-term investor. I have very large companies in my portfolio. Companies like Apple (AAPL), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), Coca Cola (KO), World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), Target (TGT), you get the idea. These companies aren't going out of business anytime soon and are fairly consistent. The market totally tanked this week. That sucks short-term, but over the long-term is a blip. It did trigger some buys for me, so the down week is great in that regard.
I was asked about the graphics. Yes, they could be better. Again, the app was created specifically for me and I didn't care about the graphics. I released it because I thought some other people might find it interesting or useful. Our goal is to get some of these bugs taken care of and then upgrade the graphics and release an iPad version. We are currently in the design stages of the update, which hopefully will make things easier. iOS should let us use iCloud to store your data so you never have to even have a login anymore, for example. We'll probably just automatically pull in the company names as well. We'll see what happens. This is just a first step.
If you have any more questions, comments, suggestions, requests, please email me theundertrader @ gmail.com.
Invest in peace...
