Monthly Goal due 2/28: Setting up “Play Money” Account

How is it the 11th of February already?!?! Work is keeping me busy, but I still need to set a goal for this short month. I’ll keep it relatively simple. What I am doing is making the ~$5,000 in my FreeTrade account my “Play Money” account. I am also thinking of it as my own experimental personal mutual fund, or a micro-fund, as first brought to my attention by IRA-CAM.com.

While I will probably not have time to even make one trade this month, I am taking steps to set it up so that I can run it with minimal time invested. Steps I want to take this month:

1) Read up on ETFs in general and also specifically the practice of trading them frequently for profit. (Yes I know this is probably a bad idea, that’s why I call it “Play Money”).

2) Right now I have about $2,400 sitting in cash in an Ameritrade Brokerage (which I opened for a bonus). It offers real-time quote streaming and no fees, as long as I keep $2,000 in the account. Freetrade charges $10/month for real-time quotes. My goal is to figure a good place to park this ~$2,000 so that I can just keep the account open for the real-time quotes yet still have it be invested in the market. Ideas range from an ultra-short term bond fund (“treat it like cash, keep it stable”) to an emerging markets fund (“risk it all, it’s only $2k!”)

3) Pick a fake stock symbol or name for my account, just for fun. (Perhaps also quickly look at the legal implications. ) How about MMBPM (MyMoneyBlog Play Money)? It’s not taken yet either!

4) This is just leftover from last month – I need to get my wife’s Roth IRA fixed and set up by the end of this month.