Trading Style

So, I was thinking the other day about my investing style.  If I had to describe it, how would I.  Is my investing style aggressive?  Is it passive?  Am I looking for value?  Should I buy and hold, or should I try my hand at day trading.  Those are just a few of the styles that I could practice and it is truly a good question.

Normally, I would stay my style is value investing.  It is a style that I first learned about while reading “The Intelligent Investor” and “Security Analysis”.  Both these books are very interesting and still provide relevant information even though they were written a long time ago.  Although there is a ton of information in these books the main thing I took from them is “Margin of Safety”.  What does margin of safety mean:  well to me, it means an investment in a solid company with strong financials, a strong management team leading the company, and a strong potential for future growth.  It means to me purchasing this investment at a discounted price that allows for appreciation.

Now, I realize that value investing isn’t probably the best for accumulating wealth quickly.  And if I want to accomplish my goal of turning $400 into $10k by the time I am thirty I will have to employ a different tactic.  I still want to stick to my roots of value investing, so, I believe I will have to create a hybrid method.  I was thinking of combining value investing and day trading.  Yes, I know the terms investing and trading are oxymoronic, especially since I come from the school of Benjamin Graham.  I do believe that this will give me the best chance at reaching my goal.  I will take calculated risks and only make a trade if there is sufficient margin of safety.

When employing a day trading tactic, it is important to review the tax implications and how your brokerage views day trading.  Hopefully, I will not have to make many transactions and fall into the brokerage house’s day trading category and pay higher fees.  I will have to do what I vowed to never do after I completed my tax law class…read more tax law and how it applies to day trading.

An update on my brokerage search, I am currently leaning towards Tradeking.com right now, unless robinhood.io goes live soon.  Tradeking.com has everything I am looking for and I have had a good history with them before.  I also have level 2 option trading privileges with tradeking.com which is a plus.  I will make the final decision as soon as I have researched the companies that I want to invest in.