If there is investing for women, retirees, and other groups, shouldn't there also be one for the military? After all, life on active duty has a lot more restrictions and peculiarities than anything I can think of in civilian life. On a very basic level, I would assume irregular Internet access, limited ability to monitor the market throughout a day, shortage of time to do research and due diligence, and limited funds. How do you make the best of what you have to get ahead?
Clearly, day trading is not an option. And it's not for lack of risk taking ability. I don't see how you can be on active duty and have the time to watch the market during trading hours. But there are other things that can be as profitable, if not more.
Midcaps
As a rule, the smaller the stock, the more it fluctuates, and the easier it is to be stopped out or shaken out of it.
The same goes for low-priced stocks. Any stock can move up or down a dollar at any time. A buck is a buck. But a $5.00 stock going down to $4.00 constitutes a 20% loss, while the same $1.00 move in a $25.00 stock is only a 4% loss. Midcaps (those with market capitalization of between $500M and $2B) priced $15.00 and above that trade several hundred thousand shares a day fluctuate comparatively less and move in more orderly trends.Once a move starts in earnest, it can last for weeks or months. No need to watch your stock(s) daily. In fact, the more you leave them alone, the better they do. The key is to catch them early on in the move. But how do you do that if you can't be online when the stock is breaking out?
Stop and limit orders
Learn how to correctly place buy and sell stop and limit orders. Let's say the stock you are looking at has a pivot of $24.73 but is currently trading at $22.11. You don't want to miss the breakout but you know you will be away for the next two or three weeks. Put a GTC (good till cancelled) stop order to buy at $24.83. Once the stock gets up there, your order will be executed even if you are not there to "witness the execution" (sorry, just couldn't help it...).
Same goes for sell orders. Once you buy a stock, your first order of priority is to protect yourself on the downside. Put a GTC stop order to sell at, say, $22.25 (10% below the pivot). If the breakout fails, you don't need to be there to cut your loss. At the same time place a limit order to sell at, say, $31.03 (25% profit). Some brokers will let you enter both, with the first one cancelling the other once executed. Nothing is sweeter than coming home to a tidy little profit.
"Can't kiss all the girls"
In this department, nothing beats Peter Lynch's advice to invest in what you know. Why not start with defense stocks: GD, LLL, LMT, NOC? I am not saying any of these guys are good investments right now but if you are plugged in, you can detect emerging trends ahead of the crowd (purchase orders, new equipment, policy changes, etc.). All you need to do is train yourself, as an investor, to look at the information coming down at you with "how do I make money off it?"
If you just watch a handful of stocks on a regular basis, you will eventually develop a feel for them that will allow you to trade them profitably in any direction (up or down).
If you don't want to limit yourself to the defense sector, you can still look around to see if any of the new products/services come from a publicly traded company. Are any of your pals into online gaming? Which games do they like? Who makes those? Any particular new products or services your pals are talking about? Who provides them?
Trading Stocks in the Military