Retiree keeps her eye on the markets and her fingers on the mouse
She's up every morning before 6, does her homework on what stocks have done in overnight trading and is ready to play the market till the closing bell rings in New York at 1 p.m., Nevada time.
It's not the typical routine for most retirees, but a woman from Henderson I met recently has been playing the markets for years. Only the tools have changed, not her strategy. She's in her early 80s and began trading stocks with a traditional broker in the mid-1950s. This super private trader insisted I not use her name, so I'll call her Mrs. H. (Henderson).
Mrs. H. recently became an elite level user at Scottrade (www.scottrade.com), a popular online investment company. She's glued to her computer during trading hours, using the many financial tools at her fingertips. She also watches -- or listens to -- several market-focused television shows on the CNBC network as she buys and sells stocks.
"I like the quote grid (on Scottrade). I can put in any stock I wish and it shows the last trade, the high, the low, the bid, the ask and the volume," Mrs. H. said. "It also has a chart (that tracks the stock price) that I find very, very helpful. And of course it has the order entry.
"I will not mention the stocks I buy," she said. "I don't buy penny stocks and I don't even care to buy stocks that are $5 or $8. I buy stocks between $10 and $100, or $10 and $200. It all depends on whichever stocks I think have a chance of going up.
"I do take losses, though. When I think a stock isn't moving, I decide I better take a loss and get out. Right now I have very few stocks I hang on to. I just buy and sell in a day. Thirty years ago I might have held 20 to 25 stocks, but now I don't care to do that."
Mrs. H. began computerized trading after taking a one-semester Windows 3.0 class in 1995 at a local college. By the time she finished, Windows 95 was released, and her new computer used the updated operating system. She leveraged what she learned and quickly became proficient on Windows 95.
She then completed a one-week course on how to use stochastics to play the currency market. To connect to the service, she was required to have a satellite dish at her home long before they became mainstream.
She said her focus on the French franc was very time-consuming, requiring her to start her day at 5 a.m.
"Even though I was making money at it, I decided to stop after a year," she said. "The satellite dish had to be adjusted, and I said, 'I guess the stars are telling me something,' so I got out."
Mrs. H. says her online trading is profitable, although she wouldn't disclose any details. When asked for tips to share, she said: "No tips. Just go to the barber, and he'll tell you."
She did reveal one bit of wisdom: "Sometimes you get sentimentally attached to a stock. That's a very bad idea."
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