New, Basic Scenario: Need Input, Please


Hi, I am new here and I have been considering doing something for a long time. I'll describe what I want to do in detail, and I would ask you -- this community -- to please identify where my flaw is.

I will assume that I start with $100,000.00 USD. I will use this money to invest in what I consider highly reputable corporations that are low risk to go under in an exceptionally quick period of time (WalMart, AVTI, CSCO, Microsoft, etc). We'll use Activision Blizzard (ATVI) for this specific example. When ATVI is at 10.99, I invest the total of my $100,000.00 USD into it. When is it at 11.00, I sell for approximately $100 profit, maybe less. I do this multiple times (more than 4) until I reach $1,000 profit (1% of my total investment value).

That's my plan. To do that repeatedly to generate income. I'll never be a multimillionaire, but making 1K a day, I will never be poor, either.

Here are some problems that I see with my plan:

1. Stock value could decline repeatedly, money can be lost.
2. Just because the market says the value of ATVI is at 11.00, does not mean ATVI will sell for 11.00 -- potential loss.
3. Day trading rules, which I am not aware of, might prohibit this type of trading behavior.

This is just an idea, I have not committed anything to this idea except playing around with online programs which seem to prove it is feasable. I have been using one stock market trading simulator, doing this 4 days in a row, and making at least 1K a day per day with $100,000.00.

Please, please shine problem areas. There is much I don't know, and I am very willing to learn from educated investors. I realize this may not be what you guys are into, and may break some ethical law or law itself: if so, please let me know.

Thank you all for your time in advance. It means a lot to me.
highly reputable corporations


In your strategy what your actually talking about is trading pure random noise, which is fine and all but the probability of the next tick being an uptick to your profit target is equivalent to the probability of the next tick being a down tick to your loss target, assuming your using a 1:1 risk:reward profile, risking 1 cent per share to make 1 cent profit. Trading random market noise and risking anything less than 1:1 will lose straight out, such as risking 25 cents per share to make 1 cent that was suggested. Thus there is no positive expectancy in your proposed strategy.

CharterJoe is correct in his suggestion of raising your risk:reward profile to 1:2 , where your risking 1 to make 2, so for example you might risk 10 cents per share to make 20 cents profit. With a purely random 50/50 outcome on 100 trades the strategy ends up with a profit after all costs are accounted for. Raising the profile further to 1:3 gives you even more breathing room on the win% and increases your potential of long term success.