2022-03-23 — Trader Shmoe’s

Eek, I’m tired. 🙃

Well, I decided to take a swing at swing trading today. I bought two stocks in the morning, sold them both this afternoon, making a small gain on both, and then I bought another stock right before the market closed, and it gained slightly in the last seconds of the open market after I bought it. I’m not trading with much money right now, so my earnings aren’t much, but on the day, my portfolio is up $50+ dollars, and $46 of that is settled, sold earnings that are back in my pocket. So… that’s something? I was two for two on my buying choices today.

Had I thought about it and sold before I left the house to go fix cars (it was a perfect time to sell right before I left), I’d have made $100 today in gains. But that’s okay. This is education as much as anything right now. I’m being fairly cautious, doing research, and getting a feel for how this all works.

The market opens again at 9:30 ET, and I’ll be better this time at getting done with my trading for the day before I even go out to work. It was a bit of headache today trying to stay on top of stocks while I was out working, and it was completely unnecessary. The largest swings are in the morning after open, generally. Large ups and large downs before leveling off for the day later on.

I’m most well versed in the electric car market, so that’s where I focused today. There were a number of stocks I thought about buying, and I would have done well on all of them had I bought them, but… I’m still a little hesitant–the newbie trying to figure it out and get comfortable. I don’t have a great set up, so there’s lots of refreshing and whatnot. And it’s super hard using the mobile app. Mobile apps aren’t designed for day and swing traders. They… can’t really be. Such traders need a ton more info at their fingertips than what one little cell phone screen can give. You need more like several monitors. 🙃

Anyway, those of you who’ve known me since I was a child know I’ve always been a numbers guy, so I’m super at home playing with numbers, looking at patterns, coming up with statistics to inform the strategies. I’m probably going to specialize pretty solidly–just like I used to with buying and selling cars in my early 20s (nearly 20 years ago!!! 😶)

So… it’s been an exciting and stressful day, but it’s been pretty darn good, overall. I think this last week and a half, I’ve had a higher average making money fixing cars than I’ve ever had. It’s been pretty amazing. And I’ve been working fewer hours to realize those greater gains, which is also awesome. I’ve been saying no to so many jobs that could suck me in, and I’ve been saying yes to the jobs that, more regularly, turn out to be straightforward.

It’s really working out well. Like I mentioned before, it makes it harder to walk away with it being so lucrative. But I’m getting there. I think. 🙃

My programming team for the alphabet stuff said they’ll be in touch with me next week, hopefully with something I can test. Should be interesting. Need to set aside some time every day to work on the symbols and whatnot. I get so distracted.

Work day… the work day… seven cars… in… like 9 hours maybe? I did really well today! First car was an alternator and battery job. He probably didn’t need both, but when I asked him if he wanted me to diagnose it first, he said, no, just change it. He also gave me a $50 tip after I was done. Super cool. That was… a Dodge Ram. I think 2008 or something. Next car was a Hyundai Santa Fe. They bought a battery and just wanted help putting it in, so I did that. Easy peasy. 3rd job was… two cars at one house, a 2010 Nissan Pathfinder that needed a camshaft position sensor, which was really annoying until I figured out how the connector worked, Then it was easy, but the connector was way behind squished between the engine and the firewall, so it was super hard to reach and figure out. Finally found a guy on YouTube who explained that particular type of connector. Once I learned how it worked, it was easy peasy. Before that, it was a… frustration.

Car #4 (at the same house) was a 2011 BMW 328i that was jerking on acceleration. Turned out to have a bad coil, even though it wouldn’t reproduce the misfire code, it was still a bad coil and misfiring. Car #5 was an on again, off again no start. Turned out to be just a loose battery cable. The parts supplier that installed the battery for them didn’t tighten down the positive cable, so it was loose and half off the post.

Car #6 was… oh, what was it… Oh yeah, 2018 Chevrolet Silverado 5.3 with a bad water pump–at 50k miles. Really, Chevy? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I mean… it is Chevy, and my granddad was absolutely correct to call it “General Motors Junk.”

Poor General Motors. They’re strugglers sometimes.

Last car, #7 was a 2017 Toyota Yaris that somehow lost it’s fender splash shield, and in the process, cut the ABS wires in two. The cut wires were hiding, though, so I couldn’t see them in the pictures she sent me. It wasn’t until I traced the wires up a little ways that I found the cut. The part was special order and like $400, so I gave her some directions for how she might be able to get around that–first by trying to find just the pigtail to splice in, etc.

I gave lots of discounts today, too. Most people got 20% off my service call because the jobs were so quick I felt a little awkward charging the full price.

Also, I’ve done so much better communicating with customers the realities of situations and not putting all the burden on me. It’s simplifying things so much and freeing up lots of time. For example, in the past, I’d have spent who knows how much time trying to find that connector for her in order to save her some money, and I wouldn’t have been paid at all for the significant amount of time I spent trying to help her out. Nowadays, I give them the homework. If we’re going to go a round about way to try to save them money, then I give them the instructions not only for what they need to go find, but also how to do the job themselves if they want to.

It’s so nice!

And just today, I realized with the AC customers that I don’t have to turn them down or be stressed out over accepting AC jobs. I simply tell them that we can pull out the parts and put on the new ones, we can even evac the system, but if you need to flush and/or recharge the system, you’ll need to take it to a shop. We can’t flush, and recharging isn’t cost effective for a mobile mechanic, as you have to sit there for 45 minutes twiddling your thumbs to make sure the system holds vacuum before you charge it.

Anyway, it’s almost 2 a.m., and I didn’t mean to be up this late at all, so I’m going to crash. I was really tired, but I’ve gotten myself distracted by so much.

Would be really nice if I can get this trading thing down to enough of a science to make my living each morning from anywhere in the world. Then I can still have that income coming in if my humanitarian stuff doesn’t find a way to feed me and/or my family (should I ever manage to have one).

Love to all of you.

Lift the World.

~ stephen