Day 1

While I am not starting this blog on January 1st exactly, I am starting it on the 2nd and right now, that is enough for me.

I don't expect anyone to read this in the beginning–maybe in a few months, who knows? At the moment, this is for me, so I'll get right into it.

365 Days of Stocks: What's this daily blog about?

The goal of this daily blog is to track my stock market journey. I have used M1 Finance for fractional shares in the past, Robinhood for options trading, Fidelity for my 401k, and now Charles Schwab. Does this make me an expert? No. In fact, I have never taken the time to truly learn or develop a strategy, and know very little about the stock market in general.

In the past, the little money I've invested has been on a whim, never with a goal in mind, beyond a vague desire to make "big money." Clearly, having no plan or structure will never yield good results, so yes, I have lost money in the past.

What will I do during these 365 days?

I will study and learn the stock market and different strategies, while simultaneously making investments and taking risks as I go.

Disclaimer: my 401K and Roth IRA are currently funded through fidelity via my paychecks; these are excluded from my journey.

Robinhood & Charles Schwab

Towards the end of December 2025, when I decided to embark on this journey with the drive to learn and succeed, I researched different brokers. I decided to go with Charles Schwab and funded the account with $400. I chose to buy Nvidia and Oracle because I have some knowledge on these two companies. While I don't intend to hold these two stocks until December, I did not want the initial investment to simply sit as cash until my "real" journey began.

Regarding Robinhood: I have had an active account for some time, which I used for higher-risk options. This was interesting journey; the most profit I ever made was $300, but because of greed and ignorance, I lost it when chasing bigger gains.

Today, I have a call option for Nike that expires on January 23rd with a strike price of $63.88. I intend to trade it once it crosses that mark. Can I be ambitious? Sure, I want to be – but this time I need to do it with understanding instead of greed.

While Charles Schwab does offer options trading, I am fairly new to navigating their platform. Therefore, I will continue to use Robinhood for options at least through the first quarter of this year.

While this blog won't necessarily track every cent, it will track my learning and my day-to-day progress. In the next few days, I am going back to the absolute basics: charts, candles, and terminology.

This is all for today – a simple introduction to what this year will be. I am very excited to embark on this chapter.