the market is brutal, life is brutal, and sometimes, even I am brutal. Shouldn't be, but get grouchy sometimes.
I'm not trying to be mean, here...but there are some flaws in your approach... You obviously don't follow the trend, otherwise you wouldn't have gotten long in November. Oct-Nov 2002, the daily trend was still DOWN as the market was heading straight into the shitter. The smart thing to do would've been to sell the rally that followed the Oct lows. You tried to pick the bottom, and you got lucky with it (or so you claim). How about posting your NAV prior to Nov 2002? What made you so convinced the "bottom" was in as of 11/02?? It's amazing how many "genuises" come out with these amazing returns after a strong rally...
I actually feel a little sorry for this guy. Someone sold him a pipe dream of capitalism equals handouts. I'll give him credit from his move from communism to capitalism, but his idea of capitalism is flawed. "This is Capitalist America, I can make tons money, just by asking for it." Sweatshops are not only found in Chinese clothing makers. America was the original sweatshop. Hard work, not expecting a handout, working two, three jobs to feed your family, then putting a couple of more in to follow a dream. My grandfather had a 3'rd grade education, Kentucky Coal Mine experience then built houses. He now has a boat, Big RV, 4 cars, great house and farms on the side so he doesn't get lazy. The reason why this guy ran into the hostility is most traders have failed more than once trying to do it for a living. By themselves. Being hired to trade professionaly with a salary is rare if not impossible these days. He's asking for a handout from people who worked their asses to get where they are. Sorry, buddy it ain't gonna happen. My guess is he won't make it. If he can average 50% annualy and he gets a job at McD's to fund his first REAL $1,000 trading account he should be able to do the math and figure out how wealthy he can be in a short time.
luojun, Hey. It's a start. Given that you are in b-school, why don't you apply for summer internship at various investment banks and large buy side money management firms? When I was in school, these places came on campus to recruit MBA, Phds, and undergrad students. If you do a good interview you should land a decent summer internship. Even in this economy, you should be able to land at least 1 decent summer internship at a reputable place if you have good credentials. Perhaps, I can help you. I've worked on the Street. And after that I went to work for a large mutual fund company that had $40B in asset. I worked in the Emerging/International market groups that covered Europe, Asia, Latin America. We had a decent size fund of about $1B in emerging market group(rest $39B were in US) that included China, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia,etc. It was crazy time during 1997-98 currency crisis in emerging markets but we lived through that. I no longer work there because I was offered a better position elsewhere(VP) and the director at other competing firms before I went the prop trading route and doing very decent now. I like trading more than just buying and holding. haha. But given that you can speak Chinese can be an advantage. Since a lot of the portfolio managers can't speak the language, you might have a shot. If you want to I can be of assistance. But what will I get in return? I can help you but then how does it help my trading? haha. It's capitalism afterall. Because, you better be a DARN good candidate. I'm not going to tell my ex-bosses and senior managment that you are a good candidate if you turn out to be nothing you know? It's my professional reputation on the line too. Even though I'm more of prop trader now. The typical interns we hired back then were in b-school from Univ of Chicago, Stanford, and Harvard. My boss and I share the same alma mater MIT and Harvard. So, it's a pretty prestigous place and decent place to LEARN if you can get in. PM me if you are interested. 99
LOL Hysterical. I remember paper trading at my internship at Merrill. My portfolio grew 20,000 on a 100,000 initial amount in a month. Wow I thought I was so brilliant. In case you did not read or understand from previous posts, paper trading is Bullshit. Stop/losses have existed for decades yet funds and traders are still losing their shirts. It's all about greed, fear and experience. If it was as easy as stop/loss, all trading would be done by computers. If you think you did so great, why don't you scrape up some money and show a real track record. Hey why even work for someone else, just make money for yourself. As for getting an internship, suck it up and start sending out resumes, faxing and doing the run around. Settle for a non paid internship, you will learn more from those.
seriously? and not for a place that wants 50% of profits, but that you trade THEIR money, and get a salary + nice bonus? like one of the ny / ct firms? ok. here's what you do. start pounding the doors. get a contact at as many trading houses as you can - use family, friends, teachers, etc. find ANYONE. then, tell that place that you're willing to work from the ground up to get in. you better have great credentials. your first job will likely be as a go-fer. you'll get lots and lots of abuse. there will be other go-fers there, too. you'll get next to no pay, be running around all day, and in between that, might learn a little about the next step. you'll probably be working about 10 hours a day. back or middle office (depending on how the firm has things set up). yeah, that place. it's no fun. here's where you'll learn about all the stuff that makes everything work..it's grunt work. and lots, and lots of grunt work. but you're a step up from go-fer. you'll stay later than everyone else, but if you're lucky (and have befriended one of the traders), you might get a bonus. you'll get some nights out, courtesy of the brokers / clients periodically as well. the salary's still pretty poor, and you're probably working 11-12 hour days, but you're learning more. and if you accomplish this... then you might be able to step up to an assistant trader. making calls to other brokerages, building up the contacts you made while in middle office, placing trades. your ideas probably won't be the basis for making trades, but if your ideas work, 'your' trader might use them. again, long hours, but you get more nights out with other traders...and better token bonuses. you might also be able to trade on the company's book (with the trader you're assisting). then, finally, a 'trader'. this is NOT a 6 month process. some places have more steps than those involved, some have less. in some places, while you're middle office or go-fer, higher-ups decide that you're not cut out to be on the path to advancement...so you may spend 2+ years to find out that you can't get anywhere near as far as you'd like. can you accept all that? i'm not trying to blow a dream. i'm just trying to state as it is.
There are so many replies. Please let me answer these one by one. jester: "The return of my real money investment is 50%." Today, it's 49%. But I think this transaction can't say anything. Frankly, I only put 1000 dollars in this account, and I only bought one stock. It's not a penny stock, anyway. I bought it at $19.30, only 46 shares. I am a poor student. I admit. Everything in American is expensive in China. so I have a tight budget. But this doesn't mean anything to my investment. You can't afford the living cost, it's your problem. It means you need work hard to make more profit. Many other companies are more generous than you, fortunately. As far as I know, my classmate got an offer $9000 per month to work in Russia. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- bungrider: You are very careful. Actually, before I started to enter the market, I just waited and did nothing. I heard many good news about American Economy. The trigger was good news about Yahoo. After Yahoo jumped from $10 to $14, I observed it for a few days, then long some stocks catiously. At that time, I bought the stocks which I studied cases about them. Funny? These companies analyzed in class became my first targets. But you can see from my chart that I didn't beat the market. It stayed with the indices. But at that time, I found that NASDAQ was stronger than other two indices. Just during the days American was going to declare war against Iraq, I found the whole market still went down. BUT you can see the performance of Yahoo, Amazon, and Ebay. So I thought what's behind the price? What will be after Ameircan wins this war? I adjusted my portfolio, and increased the weight of these three stocks. I believed in the capability of American army. Did you? ------------------------------------------------- Trader99: Thank you very much for your kind offer. It will be great if I can work for that fund. I think you must have made a lot from Chinese B share market. I only doubled my dollars. Unfortunately, at that time I need dollar to go to American, I didn't put much in that market. Otherwise, I can live better now. Frankly, I think I will get more than I can give. This is a large fund, absolutely I will learn a lot. "Give wood in snowy days" is what we Chinese say if you give a hand to a person who need help desperately. I really appreciate it very very much if you can. Now I answer your first question, and I hope this also answers those "sharks". First, I know clearly what are my weakness: a foreigner, no former "formal" experience, and lots of native competitors. So I focus my endeavor on local companies and smaller companies. At that time, the portfolio I managed was only 15% return. No one was interested in me. I guess maybe they also have the same thoughts as those "sharks". But the performance of my portfolio might be the only way I can sell myself. If I can't do it well, how can I convince my boss hire me? In fact, my pressure was even higher than those trading with their REAL money. At that time, I faced a problem. Amazon often appreciated above the maximum percentage. I had to sell a few shares to meet the rules. I wrote emails to professors asking for help!!! Anyway, it's my first time to obey rules. Later, these three stocks appeared flat or even worse. You can image how I felt. I also don't have enough resources to screen the stocks meeting my criteria. Fortunatly, the stocks I bought with only 5% weight came into my eyes. These stocks I observed for a while, and they were obviously stronger than those stocks. I adjusted the weight of my fund again. It's the second rally you see on my chart. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- gaj: Thank you very much for telling me these things. I know why I come here. I know why I gave up the good days in Shanghai and pursue a MBA degree here, because I want to be a fund manager. I don't expect to be a trader at the beginning. I need expose to this huge market, and I need learn more about thousands of companies in this market. I don't mind starting at the entry level. Not at all. Today I got a interview from a hedge fund. I feel good. This might be a good start for me.
$60,000 compounded annually at 50% would be $97,926 at the end of year 1 (4.17% per month). In 5 years, it would be just under $695,000. Compounded over 10 years, it would become $8,046,431. If you can make those kind of returns, I would say that $60,000 starting capital is plenty. As far as using stop loss orders - I have great stop discipline. If following your stops were a criteria for trading success, I'd be a f**king market wizard. There's that little detail of just where to put the stop -- the market very often goes "where the price should not be there."
Don't be so naive. Which fund have you seen appreciate at a constant rate? You just show us you are immature, not only your investment skills, but also your thoughts. What I have done is I have beaten the market. I will continue my endeavor. I don't know how much, but I know I will. If you always leave the market by your stop order, you just enter the market wrongly. Why did you enter the market? What's your reasons? Do you think you have 70-80% confidence? If you don't, you are killing yourself. Stock market is not casino. Another principle is 'keep winner, kick loser'. I believe you have learned this for a long while. Have you really obey this rule? Fear and gread is your largest enemy, not me. One stock contribute 20% in my portfolio. It has appreciated 96%. I used to suggest people read "Beating the market", by Peter Lynch. I sincerely think you need it. Stick to those disciplines you have learned from those maters, these rules are their precious experience. Do not only the motto you put on your desk, read them every day and earnestly practise them.