Eight
Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 3353 |
03-09-12 07:23 AM
Quote from blowingup2012:
Before I start off, let me say up front this will be my last post to this website. I came here today just to make this post.
I discovered the stock market during the Christmas of 1998. I remember watching CNBC and watching how things were moving up. I decided to get a Interactive Brokers account. I decided to trade CHK exclusively with a small account...about 20,000. CHK kept moving up and I kept daytrading it. I moved on to other stocks eventually. I actually had no idea what I was doing, but somehow I was making money.
At some point in 2004, I started reading websites, blogs and other such things which set me down the wrong path. It seemed the more "knowledge" I took in the worst I did. Before that time, I hadnt considered looking at charts and didnt really know what an indicator was. I didnt even have a strategy. Just daytrade a few stocks that seemed to be on the move up from day to day with tight stops.
Fast forward to today and I have nearly a $160,000 loss on my tax returns. If I only lost $160,000 then I would have been very lucky, however, I lost more. I wasted a lot of time and my trading severely impacted my social relationships. It severely impacted my health and the way I thought. For all intensive purposes, I was just like a drug addict.
Today, I have my own business and do well with it. Last year, I made well into the six digits. However, I should have started that business ten years ago and not wasted any time with the markets. Not only did I blow opportunities in regards to social relationships, but I also blew away time which could have been used in developing my business. I could have been 10 years ahead at this point, but now I am 10 years behind.
There is a way to make money in the markets and that is by investing in mutual funds or etfs when the market goes through one of those big selloffs. Indicators are good for one thing and that is to let you know when things are really sold off so you can add to your mutual funds. Here is one good indicator, among others, which I use to make entries into my long term retirement accounts. When the vast majority of stocks are traveling under an average, then that is probably a good entry point right there:
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$NAA150R&p=D&st=2002-01-01&en=1003-01-01&id=p41097975344
I currently have six etfs in my retirement account which I add to during big market selloffs which come each and every year bottoming usually in the late summer/early fall months: SPY, QQQ, IWM, DVY, EEM and TLT. When the market seems way overbought, I will sell half of my holdings and be partly in cash waiting for that selloff. This is a reasonable strategy which you do not have to put much thought into.
Daytrading, prop trading, etc. is a sucker's game. You will either lose time, money or both. That time could have been spent with family, building social relationships or building a business. Once you lose that time, there is no way of getting it back. In 1999, my grandmother and father were still alive. However, they are not alive today. In focusing on the market, I wasted time...time I could have spent with them.
If you do insist on playing this sucker's game, then let me tell you what WILL NOT help you.
#1. Blogs, websites on trading, subscription sites, CNBC, Bloomberg, Jim Cramer, Yahoo message boards etc. Sites like TheSTREET.COM, etc. None of these sites will help your trading and will probably make it worse as it did mine. CNBC is full of excuses as to why the market moves everyday. Hey, they dont know. They are just guessing. Many of the so called "money managers" on CNBC are a bunch of crooks just trying to get your money.
#2. The people who lurk behind these anonymous handles. These people will not help you and may instead try to take your money in other ways. I know some of you are looking for mentors, teachers or coaches on these sites, but I would not trust any of the people lurking behind these internet aliases. In fact, I would even donate to a legal fund (if there was one) to bring lawsuits against these people who lurk behind anonymous handles. A lot of these guys are rip-off artists who come to these forums playing a confidence game of some type. They will tell you things like they used to work on Wall Street, they will sit there all day long making after the fact calls, they will fake their credentials telling you something like they were a doctor...don't believe a word they say and if it sounds too good to be true...then it probably is. The only thing I will believe is the brokerage ticket and, until I see that, I do not believe anything anyone says on here. I dont care if they posted 10,000 messages or have a history on here...they might be like a Madoff. Dont trust them.
#3. Useless trading books and publications. I dont need to explain more.
My advice to you is not to get into trading. Invest your money into diversified mutual funds or etfs during obvious market selloffs. Take half off the table during obvious overbought conditions. However, if you really MUST trade then let me give you the following advice:
#1) Take it slow. Do not start trading with money until you have made money paper trading. I know I will get a lot of odd replies about this, but I am confident that if you can't make money on paper then you cant' make money with actual trades. It may take you a few months, several months or years, but do not trade with real money until you can hack it on a simulator.
#2) Get your "education" from popular well known trading books written by popular well known authors. Do not get your "education" from anywhere else.
#3) In any prop or trading firm...on any website, etc., everyone has a million odd strategies. They will whip out some indicator or chart that you have never seen in your life which seems odd and hard to understand. They will use terminology you have never heard of, some complex options strategy...probably to look smart. Do not try to use someone else's strategy. Develop your own.
#4) Take of your health and social relationships above all. Family comes first. Dont waste your time here when you could be using it to spend time with the ones who count most.
I wish you all good luck and hope you make the right decisions. There was a guy on this website named NYHOOD who recently quit trading to form his own business. I wish him well and hope he succeeds. I know he is now moving down the right path.
There are folks out there who do make money off the market. I remember visiting a magnificent apartment in New York City with all the bells and whistles of a certain option trader. It was an amazing place which seemed to be a prime example of successful trading. However, I am the prime example of an unsuccessful trader and there are many folks out there like myself who just have losses to show. For the rest of my life, I will have a $3000 write-off each and every year. Im not proud of that at all.
I am done with this website otherwise and will not come back to reply to any responses. I just wanted to post my story, my opinion and a bit of advice for those who want to go into trading. Best of luck to you all...
Such a post.. it's long, it's boring, it drops the reader off in the middle of nowhere.... He's an ENTP!! They write these boring-ass tutorials and think that everybody is just lapping it up but those in the audience fall asleeeep in three seconds and wake up at the end..
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