one trade, five days, $10K

Disclaimer: I only trade penny stocks very rarely and only with money I can afford to lose. I do not recommend trading penny stocks to anyone who does not fully know what they are doing.

Hit a new milestone this week guys!

Finally had my first trade that crossed the $10,000+ mark and it only took 5 days!
The trade was on a sub-penny stock with the symbol VPCO.
Here's a series of tweets I posted about the trade prior, during, and afterward..

Wednesday, February 24th

The idea came from a brilliant trader I follow on twitter, who mentioned VPCO could have bounce potential. It was just recently delisted from NASDAQ down to the OTC market and had dropped like a sack of bricks... 

lesson 2: opening your account and brokerage reviews

Types of investment accounts you can and should open.

Brokerage account:
This is your average trading/investing account. Open one of these if you want the freedom of being able to deposit and withdrawal at any time.

Roth IRA: 
This is one type of retirement investing account. Here's how it works...
You can deposit up to $5500, after-tax into the account per year, you can also take your deposits out at any time with no fee. Any capital gains that you make in the account are not taxable as long as they stay in the account. Once you turn 59.5 and can start making qualified withdrawals, the capital gains will be taxed at your then tax rate. Due to the power of compounding, this is a fantastic account to open, deposit your yearly maximum, and let the markets do their magic.

Traditional IRA: 
This is another retirement investing account. The only benefit difference between this and a Roth IRA is how it can help your tax situation. You can deposit the same $5500 per year, however, when you make your deposits to this account they count as pre-tax dollars. So, when you file your taxes at the end of the year, you can show them that you deposited $5500 into your IRA, and it will look like you made $5500 less income! Woo!

Here's a little chart I created to show how much you can earn and save by letting your account compound and grow in a Roth IRA, assuming you deposit $5500 per year, earn the market average of 7%, and grow the account for 40 years.

You only deposited $220,000 and you end up with $1.25M. Nice!

I would recommend opening up both a brokerage and an IRA. If you already make a lot of money and need the benefit of lowering your taxes a bit, choose Traditional. If you don't need to worry about the tax break right now, choose Roth, and MAX THEM OUT!

Brokerage Review: Where to Open Your Account

There are a few brokerages I have worked with over the last few years, so I'll give you a short summary of each in order for you to decide what best fits you.