Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background.

Idea for getting rich using computers to track stocks
I (and probably most considering trading) had a similar thought as you.  I thought if I just skimmed the peaks and sold before the troughs, perhaps aided by computer, I'd be able to make a 2% here, 2% there, and that would add up quickly to a nice amount of money.  It almost did seem "foolproof". Then I realized that sometimes a stock just slides...down...and there is no peak higher than what I bought it for.  "That's OK," I'd think, "I'm sure it will recover and surpass the price I bought it for...so now I play the waiting game."  But then it continues sliding, and my $10k is now worth $7k.  Do I sell?  Did I build a stop loss point into my computer program?  If so, what is the right place to put that stop?  What if there is a freak dip down and it triggers the stop loss but THEN my stock recovers?  I just lost $14,000 like this last week--luckily, only virtually! The point is, your idea only has half a chance to work when there is a mildly volatile stock that stays around some stable baseline, and even then it is not easy.  And then you factor in fees as others mentioned... People do make money doing this (day traders), and some claim you can use technical analysis to time orders well, so if you want to try that, read about technical analysis on this site or elsewhere.