Trying My Hand at Stock Trading

When I look at the date of the last blog post here, it blows my mind! I'm in such a different place in my life, and reading through the few previous posts makes me realize just how full my life really is.

But these days, I'm trying something new.

Back in January 2016, I had been following Tesla Motors for a few months while shopping around for the next car I would buy. When I came across this possibly of buying an electric car, I saw the opportunity to realize my teenage dream. Then once you start following Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, you get hooked! I'll save my experience with setting up my trading account and buying my first stock for another time. The point here is, my only intention with buying $TSLA stock was to be a prestige stock holder as a way of showing my support in their cause. I wanted to buy it, and then never touch it.

Now it's over 2-1/2 years later, and my experience following the Tesla stock through ups and downs have taught me a lot about how my emotions can take a similar trajectory. With the high volatility of Tesla stocks, I've been emotionally elated, deflated, and ultimately more resilient to the wild swings in price and inconsistent behaviour of $TSLA in contrast to the general market and comparable tech stocks. My fear of investing has subsided substantially, and I'm ready to look at more stable opportunities. For the last couple of months, I've been indulging in research into how to invest for passive income, and honestly -- I'm so excited!

I'm thinking about tracking my trading activities, and commenting on reasons for my decisions. I don't know how this is going to go, but I have a source of disposable income that will allow me to experiment. I'm trying to think through how I will post my holdings without compromising my personal security. So bear with me.

This morning, a Norbit's Gambit transaction just completed that allowed me to pick up my first non-Tesla stock. I'm quite excited to start tracking and evaluating a different company. My first pick was purely social. A friend of mine owns a few shares in $CMC (Commercial Metals Company) and I wanted to buy some to join the ride and have something to do together. I did some digging into what areas of major operation they have. I like that one of them is recycling. They have been around for over 15 years, and seem to give a pretty consistent dividend payment of $0.12 for the past decade. That says "reliable" to me. The stock price is also very manageable at just over $20/share.

Others that are on my radar include a lot of Canadian Banks (all of which survived the great market crash of 2018 because of the solid regulations put in place) -- in particular, Bank of Montreal ($BMO.TO) because of their consistency over 100 years, and CIBC ($CM.TO) because I see them a bit ahead of the curve with their entrepreneurial approach to client care and recruitment.

In the US, I have my eye on Coca-Cola ($KO) and McDonalds ($MCD) as staple businesses with strong global presence and a long-standing history.

Of course, there are SO many others that I'm watching. But these above will likely be my first "try-outs" as I get my feet wet. Here we go!!!

Results as of Market Close on September 10, 2018