Newbie question - better to trade cheap stocks?

[zmichael855 0]

Hi, I am learning in the simulator and developing my strategy.  One thing I've noticed is that trading lower priced stocks has been much more profitable.  For instance, a while ago I bought 100 shares of AI for $30 and sold it for $31, which gives me $100 already reaching my daily target.  With the same money if I buy 10 shares of Tesla at $300 and sell at $301, I make $10.  Yay.  Of course with cheap stocks there is also greater potential for loss but with proper stops and risk management this shouldn't be an issue.  And of course I'm not talking about penny stocks, I stay away from those, I'm talking about stocks between $20 and $50.  So I am wondering, is there a reason experienced traders don't focus on lower priced stocks?  Is there something I'm missing?

[Angela Kuzeva 23]

Hi, few things, you will make same money no matter the stock is cheap or not, if you are trading with fix risk, there will be no difference, just you will buy / sell different number of shares, more shares for AI and less for Tesla. The price of the stock doesn't define the profitability. 1$ on a 30$ stock and 1$ on a pricey stock mathematically don't have the same value. But 1R profit on the same two stocks has it. 

Experienced traders focus on stocks in play, those liquid and in play for the day as they provide the best opportunities with clean price action and fast moves because many traders are trading the stock. Look at RVOL, shares traded for the day, ATR and how clean is the price action.

My advice is to collect data and figure out which stocks you trade well. What I mean by this is that we are different, and everyone has different personality, some trade well stocks which move slower, and others prefer stocks which move faster. Some stocks are more volatile or wicky and every stock has its own personality too. That information will come from your stats over series of trades. However, it doesn't mean you have to avoid all other stocks, it just means that you have a little more edge with some group of stocks than others. I will give you an example, my stats show that I trade well stocks over 20$+, ATR 1$+ and over 2 mln shares traded today. How does this help me. If I am in discord call out chat or look at the scanners, first thing when someone calls a stock, I will look at the ATR, RVOL and shares traded. Then will look in the price action and how clean it is before ever decided to take a trade. This is subjective and I use it for stocks I never traded. I still will trade stocks under 20$ like $CCL or $NIO on certain days when they move clean. The more you trade the more you get experience and understanding of what works for you and what to avoid. There are these traders who trade only few stocks like $SPY. $QQQ or $AAPL and $TSLA. They have spent time to get to know the stocks and how they move, and this gives them a little edge. But they still trade a profitable strategy and have sound execution to make money. 

On a different note, learn and test a profitable strategy. This is where the focus must be and forget for the money you will make. Even when you trade live, your main focus is to execute the strategy well and not the money. The money is a by-product of the strategy, your execution and discipline not the price of the stock. Setting daily target of how much money you have to make is something which will delay your development as a trader. It is unrealistic to expect to reach a daily profit goal when you are learning. You may be green for the day but traded horribly and you will take this as a great performance when you just got lucky. Your daily goals must be performance based - discipline, patience, execution, selection etc. Did you execute according to your rules. Was your selection good? Did your trade meet the strategy criteria. 

Trading is just the opposite of what everyone thinks. They focus on the money (outcome), but trading is about focusing on the process of trading (performance) and money follows. You start with a strategy, when you master it, you work on your entries, then you work on holding to target and this is how money flow in your account if you consistently execute your strategy. This takes years, set the right expectations from the start, it doesn't come in a month or even an year or two. 

[Martin D 27]

I am one of the traders Angela mentioned who tends to trade AMD, AAPL, TSLA etc every day. For me they are more predictable because of the higher liquidity and the types of institutions required to move them run on algos and those algos have certain behavior that you see over and over again. I will trade stocks "in play" as well because you can get big directional moves based on news, this is also fairly predictable as they are trading large RVOL because longer term participants are involved, in this scenario I can see within the T&S/L2 when things are beginning to change.

The exception is the float of the stock rather than the price for most traders as once you get to a certain size in your trading smaller floats can be difficult to trade, there are some stocks which is too easy to turn the price. You basically need to be able to get in and out easily without slipping too much on the spread and you need sufficient liquidity that anybody can't just dump it 50c with a $50k account (there are a number of $20-$50 stocks where you can do that on a daily basis if it doesn't have huge RVOL on news). Companies like the big US airlines (AAL, DAL) for example have a big float so that doesn't tend to happen even though they're a cheaper stock price.

That said I can still find a $3+ move way easier on TSLA than I can $0.5+ move on a $50 stock (unless it's got a great catalyst), for instance on Friday TSLA was an obvious false breakdown just before 10:30, not saying you would catch the whole thing but if you did it was a $9+ move, this is the ATR at work, a $1 move in that type of price stock and a $50 price stock are very different.

To quote you, the things you may be missing are therefore, ok you can make $50-$100 or whatever on the stock but what is your end goal and is it still feasible on the stocks you're trading, if I use Andrew as an example, he just can't trade a lot of stocks with his size, he would get too much slippage on his stops because there isn't enough liquidity for him. Also you say risk management will stop the greater risk of loss but is the liquidity there on your stock to be able to get out with the risk you want? it may be fine when you're trading 100 shares but if you want to get to 1k shares or 5k shares then it's not the same thing. Not everyone wants to get there or maybe it's not an issue on the stocks you're actually trading but that combined with the predictability for me are the reason I choose higher priced stocks. If you listen to the morning show with Carlos, he says "no volume" to half the stocks he gets suggested and this is basically what he means, he doesn't think it'll move predictably/that a relatively small amount of money can move the stock. He'll also says look at that spread (or something along those lines), basically he's saying you'll be down big when you get in because you've jumped across the spread and then your risk management may not work very well in being able to get out because there's just not enough liquidity on the order book, this is the reasons a lot of us trade big stocks most days (particularly at the moment where most news is market wide news rather than company specific news)

[zmichael855 0]

@Angela Kuzeva @Martin D Thank you!  Lots to think about.  Looks like trading cheap stocks only works with a small account.  I will take a look at that Tesla trade.  

@Angela Kuzeva Which discord call out groups do you use.

[Martin D 27]

16 hours ago, zmichael855 said:

Looks like trading cheap stocks only works with a small account

Not all cheap stocks and it depends how you play them (are they in play). Just saying it's not as easy as playing any stock in that range the way that you see the mods play TSLA, AMD etc every day even when they're not necessarily in play (they're often moving with the market), stocks in the $20-$50 range you just need them to have a catalyst to generate the liquidity on a lot them, if you're a catalyst find the trend type trader then you can follow those stocks around with catalysts and you'll likely be fine (there's just not as many around as there was in the past few years). Through Covid for example those types of stocks were played a lot because the travel sector was often in play every time there was a drop off or spike in numbers or some new variants was found or some vaccine news or whatever, however at the moment the catalysts tend to be more around economic data so the market as a whole moves and so we're more playing those big market names at the moment because that's where the liquidity is.

[zmichael855 0]

@Martin D  Makes sense.  Been doing more research and found out that the 4:1 leverage I can get could make it easier to trade the bigger stocks with a small account.  Do you use leverage and do you have rules about how much leverage you use, do you set limits on how much leverage you use or do you use all they give you.

[Martin D 27]

Yes I use leverage but my rules are around trade size rather than using a certain amount of leverage. For example (not my real numbers), if I want my stop size on TSLA to be 50c and I want to risk $100 on my trade then I want 200 shares, regardless of whether that means I'm using no leverage or all my leverage that's the trade I want to take. Of course with margin you can get yourself in serious issues if you don't trade properly and abide by your stops but that's for each individual to assess their own risk of not doing that (and if you can't then trading is probably not the right career).