Today, I did my first trade ever with the Supernova pick CAPR. To be honest, I'm not focused on trading right now, I'm focused on learning but I wanted to dip my toe in the water mainly to see what's it like to put an order in ETrade. I was a little concerned my toe might get eaten by a shark. I bought a tiny amount of shares just 38, and I was in and out fast. I bought at $5.8564 and sold at $6.20 for a $13.04 profit.  

One of the main things Tim teaches is sell into strength. In my mind I was willing to risk a few dollars for the education of doing a trade, and I figured if I tried it out on a Supernova pick that would be my best option. It might sound really silly, but I had no idea how to use ETrade so I needed some first hand experience.

I've been studying how to read level 2. With doing this trade I was not able to figure out how to see level 2. I'm not sure if it's because you have to put more money in your account in order to see it, because I only put a small amount in there right now for learning. Or if it's just me, and I couldn't figure out how to see level 2 because I don't know how to properly use ETrade yet. Or if it's something you have to pay for? I definitely felt at a big disadvantage not being able to see it though.

When I first tried to buy the stock I used limit for price, which was great advice! I started out selecting immediate or cancel from the options.  In my mind, doing Good For Day kind of freaked me out because obviously I didn't want to necessarily buy at that price all day long if the stock was dropping. And having never placed an order I had no idea how hard it would be to cancel the order if you changed your mind. I ended up having to go with Good For Day because Immediate or Cancel wasn't getting my order filled, the price was changing so rapidly. It turns out there is a cancel or change button after you place the Good For Day order if it hasn't yet been executed, so that made me feel better.

The next lesson I learned was that selecting a limit price between the bid and ask wasn't working in this situation to get the order filled. The price kept rising so fast the order wouldn't get executed. I ended up having to do a limit price over the ask to keep up, and it got executed a little lower than the limit price I put in.

I had an amount in my head I wanted to sell $6.20 if it reached, and I placed the sell order when it was getting close. I had decided I'd be really happy with a small gain just to learn how to place an order. It turns out the stock rose all the way into the $11s so I learned the lesson of how to be content with where you're at. This was a learning experience for me so the fact that I had any profit at all makes me happy. 

It felt like being in the water with huge cruise ships, and zippy speed boats - the penny stock traders. Apparently, statistically the vast majority of speed boats crash. And then there was me in my little row boat with no fancy technology, taking a few rows observing and learning from what was going on around me, deciding to be content experiencing the water. Meanwhile enjoying the sunshine and blue skies of a very small gain because I know not everyday will be sunny.

The main things I need to figure out are how to see Level 2, and how to watch the price change without constantly hitting refresh every second on the little chart so I know what's happening.

That might sound so incredibly basic it's not even funny, but that's the honest truth of where I'm at. I like to be transparent. If you have any advice, or noticed any major mistakes in what I did please do share! If you're concerned for me with how inexperienced I am, know I'm not planning on trading frequently while I'm learning. I figure it's worth risking a little bit of money to experiment with a few things you can only learn by doing. By sharing this I'm hoping to get some help with the things I don't know how to do, which I truly appreciate! As well, I'm hoping any responses from those of you more experienced might help a few other beginners on here that possibly have the same super basic questions that I'm wondering. Or maybe I'm the most inexperienced one here... not sure :)

Thanks!

Wendy Irene