fastang's $5,000 to $8,500 stocks only thread

As the title states, I am striving to turn $5,000 into $8,500 through stocks only in my cash account. I have been trading now for 2 years and I am going to change my strategy a little. Hopefully this thread will keep me on course to help me with that.

I have always been more of a gambler than an investor. I would try and grab stocks that were running and stocks that were hot at the time trying to make big gains quickly. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not. I do know now that type of trading is not for me anymore.

I decided to make an attainable goal of $8,500 with no time limit involved. Reaching that goal would feel good and will give me more confidence to trade in the future. I want to make more educated picks looking months ahead instead of hours or minutes away. No pinks or pennies will be involved in my endeavor. I will post my picks here and you are welcome to ridicule or praise them

Out of my $5,000 I currently hold 300 shares of SLV which I purchased at $15.54 last Tuesday. I also have $368 in cash. Unrealized gain so far, $117.

Below is a quote from a well-renowned investor of our time. It makes me laugh a little everytime I think of it, because it goes againt everything we have ever been taught.

I will probably diversify a little with my next trade/s. I'm not a fan of owning a lot of different stocks at a time. Two, maybe three, will be the most I own at one sitting. Also, the broker I have now sucks. $11.95 per trade and $.01 per share for any amount of shares over 1,000. So if I were to diversify and buy, say, 5 different stocks that would cost me over $100 in fees. I am in the process of opening a TOS account so I won't be getting raped in fees. I plan on moving my money over there as soon as I sell SLV.

For now, I am pretty confident in my 300 shares of SLV. I have a mental stop at $15.20 which I do not believe we will see anytime soon.

Currently I am in the desert, stuck in a building for 12 hours day, and I only have about 15 minutes of real work to do per day. I have plenty of time to research and develop ideas.

I'm not the best at charting. I know the basics and that is about it. My main play will be fundamentals; good companies with good outlooks. There are a select few posters on this board I secretly stalk, and I don't mind taking their hints or ideas into consideration.

SLV hit my stop loss the other day. I need some guidance how to sett them. I never know what % to aim for and I had it at 15.45. It made me mad, because right after it hit it, SLV went right back up and over $16.00.

XING has been a stock I've been following for some time. I like the recent action lately so I entered 1500 shares in the mid 1.80s.

Edit: Edited this post for proper grammar and to fix the price I entered at. I also learned a lesson not to post while taking narcotics for a knee injury.

I am.

I am really beating myself up on the stop I set for SLV. I would have been up close to 7% on it now.

Xing hit my stop of $1.97 on Tues. +150

Turned around and bought 3900 shares of ARYX at $1.22.