By John Gardner
16 April 2009

On March 14, John Gardner won the $1000 Grand Prize for the ShareBuilder Two-Month Challenge in the Young Money Stock Market Game. Now, in his own words, he’s sharing his top trading tractics with you!

Stock Market Game Winner: John Gardner
Young Money’s stock trading game is fun and easy. You CAN actually win real money by risking nothing. If I can, you can, period!  Cyber trading is simple, you win by never losing.

Follow a few simple rules;
1.  HEDGE every trade, long or short. Period, no exceptions.
2. ALWAYS use stop loss, period.
 
To explain, hedging is what the real hedge funds do, only they can do it with real money, and real shares. In my humble opinion, it will work with most stocks, most of the time. You follow a stock … you wait on a sharp move, up or down, and then you buy or sell short against the move. Normally, the stock will then move the other way.  Then you make the “hedge trade.”  Next, you make the spread between your two positions.  It’s that simple.

You can and will lose sometimes.  Nothing is guaranteed, and nothing is 100% bullet proof.   Use stop loss orders as you’re watching a position just get worse and worse.
It’s tough to swallow at times, but must be done.

A few of my favorite stocks for the Young Money stock market game are;
AIG, C, BAC, SKF, FAS, F, CTIC, DNDN.

The ETFs are golden, use them!   They trade a lot of shares, and they move up and down constantly.

A final thought for “real world” investing.   I like stocks that pay monthly dividends, especially during this very unique recession.

Here are a few of my favorites;
FAX, DSU, HIS, EAD, AOD, IGR.
 
Good luck to all Young Money players!
Cheers,
John Gardner
3/14 contest winner