Hey guys, quick noob question.

What platform do you guys use to trade USA stocks?

This post has been edited by win44: Sep 25 2015, 04:24 PM

I tried opening an account with TradeKing,
But it said it is only for US citizens or those living in USA with social security number.

Do any of you use tradeking?
It merged with Zecco, so i cant use that either.

Any good alternatives?

I have a gut feeling that crude is going back down soon.

..also because bloomberg says that the "meeting/discussions" between russia and saudi is just conjecture. And that there is low likelyhood of such an agreement.

http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/99558/4-wa...t-oil-with-etfs

PowerShares DB Crude Oil Short ETN (SZO)
This is arguably the least risky of the bunch, offering investors -1x short exposure to WTI crude. The ETN is rebalanced on a monthly basis though, so decay rebalancing issues are minimized, while it also adds in the yield from short-term T-bills as well (read Three ETFs for the Unconventional Oil Revolution).
The product charges investors 75 basis points a year for exposure, making it a relatively cheap choice in the inverse ETF market. SZO doesn’t have that much volume though, so bid ask spreads might be a little wide in this fund.
- See more at: http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/99558/4-wa...h.g7Fijq2g.dpuf

In DWTI @ 330.5
Small amount, just to test waters.

Where can we read the API bulletin for free? On the website it says require subscription.

Held some DWTI from yesterday, feeling some hurt today.
But made some damage control, bought in some dwti @ 272 and sold @ 285.
Still holding some pricey dwti, haha.. hopefully the next few days will see oil back down again.

haha, approx 1 iphone. But its worth the lesson learnt.
But hope to recover in the next few days!

This post has been edited by win44: Feb 4 2016, 10:01 AM

Darn. it seems my broker doesnt allow me to trade with funds from my sales.
I have to wait for T+3 before i can use the funds for trade. haha.. different from my malaysia broker HLE.

No more trading for me this week. =)

Quick Question:

The WTI CL:1 is trading up 2.7%
So why is the USO trading down -4% ?

I thought they should be in-line with eachother.

Didnt see wrong, i check WTI CL:1 from http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/CL1:COM
CNBC also give similar WTI CL
I understand it should move in line with USO. but have a difference. Maybe their charts are lagging abit.

Im using Just2Trade, low brokerage of $2.50.
But not instant use of funds after selling (for cash account).

As for Margin account, they say can use immediately. (but i recently read about being flagged as a "day trader" need $25k equity in margin account.)

Just2trade, based in newyork. but their funding bank is chicago.
I didnt do too much background check. but i did check whether they are legit or not.
the platform seems good enough for me. browser based. i went for the cheap brokerage, since im a small time player (for now) haha

Seems their laws are quite restrictive. I will need to wait for funds for now.
dont have 25k on me =)

Isnt this due to the decay. looks quite clear to me, due to the recent drops, DWTI will be dificult to revisit 42X ++.

That day drop 25% in one day, hard to recover from that. even if gain 25% back, the DWTI value would have shrunk.

2nd Feb Close @ $334
3rd Feb Close @ $249 (~25% drop)

Hypothetically, if $249 gains 25% the next day, ( 249 x 1.25 = 311), Then DWTI gets to $311 only..
Value shrinks as it goes up and down.

Im still holding onto some DWTI bought at $328. Will hold as long as fundamentals are weak. Quite a gamble.

I wonder if linkedin is a good buy now...

Actually for DWTI to get to 400++, then WTI or USO needs to drop consistently. Perhaps over a few days.
big drops and consistent in one direction is what made DWTI jump to 400+ levels.
But if WTI goes up one day, and down the next, and up again, holders of DWTI will suffer some loss.
So your method of in-out, without holding overnight is probably the best strategy for this etf.

If we see bears and bulls fighting to keep Oil +-$30, then DWTI is going to "decay" a bit.
So my current bet is that this week, there is less recovery in oil. If WTI consistently goes down, maybe 2% per day, i can finally sell off the DWTI. haha

It seems the market doesnt believe in Opec/Russia/Saudia "comments or statements" anymore.

Yes, good for some of us who averaged down DWTI.
No big news so far on limiting production from OPEC & Russia.
In march, the Iran reports will be out, how much they are selling on the market.

In March, USA consumption will increase a little bit, due to summer time.

But overall, looks like oil will be going down, no reason to stop before $25.

looks like i will close my dwti position before market closes.

Luckily i closed my dwti at 385.
perhaps it would be a great time to accumulate DWTI, and average down the cost in the next few days.
Seems the market likes to correct itself every couple of days, and use the excuse of "he/she/it says they are willing to talk about production cuts".

Also interesting to see Uwti & DWTI at about 3% difference.
Perhaps shorts are happy to close dwti, but hesitant to get into uwti?


This post has been edited by win44: Feb 13 2016, 12:58 AM

Tho your safe bets on oih-slb-xle, might take a long long time to bear fruits, seeing as they forecast oil to be low for a long long time, some say till 2017 only $45.

Yes, i was also curious why WTI and USO had such a large difference. one is 12% another is 4%.
Last month i asked about it here, and figured the difference could be due to the different trading times.
WTI market opening earlier (includes asia trading) and USO only trading during NYSE hours.

But! from yesterday, i saw WTI only increas 4% during asia hours. So there is still an unaccounted difference.

So i did some googling, and found this:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/189214-how...ity-etf-returns

After reading this, i understand a couple things, if i am correct:

1. Contango affects USO etf.

2. Normally, an ETF like USO will match the spot price of WTI at the expiry date of the contract.

3. When people buy futures contracts, they can go to collect the physical quantity of what they bought. But since this is troublesome, they just sell the current contract and buy the next month contract.

4. So lets say i had $1000 worth of wti futures, so i own 1000/$26wti = 38.46 shares (or barrels), For March contract.
But April contract WTI is trading at $29.
If i sell all my 38.46 shares, and get my back my money $1000, and buy April contract, i would end up with only 1000/29 = 34.48 shares (or barrels).
So i end up with less barrels, at a higher price.

5. But perhaps for USO, this "rollover" is automatic, whereby if i dont do anything, my USO automatically rolls over to follow april contract movement. Since i do not physically lose any USO shares, then the price would need to change to match the april contract.

This could be the reason why WTI moved higher, but USO moved less. Because USO will factor in the contango and value loss into the price. If this is true, we can expect USO to move slightly differently when there is contango, and nearing to the contract date. (16th every month?)

EDIT:

If found the clearest explanation here:
http://www.etf.com/etf-education-center/21...kwardation.html

This post has been edited by win44: Feb 13 2016, 12:38 PM