%% WELL I had a car dealer give me 2 lotto tickets, a stupid tax on people that cant do math/get rich quick.But since my cost was $oo.00. I scratched them + no harm or win done.LOL .IF I was you, I would invest every month or quarter, in some thing like Fidelity....... ContraFund. SPY ,QQQ........ Once you get math mature,ZH horner you can be wrong+ wrong a lot + still make money.I was fairly bearish + wrong last week of DEC, on QQQ. BUT since it is a bull market I was in UPRO or SPXL + SPY so still made money, lots better than cash. But QQQ did a lot better the last week or 2, than SPY,; UPRO+ SPXL did better than QQQ. BUT SPXL + UPRO don't pay as good a dividend as SPY. Dave Ramsey books + Jack Schwager/ Blair Hull interview/book helped. Cutting yards as a kid helped
%% Plenty of patterns are alike; but bid ask spread is much better on stocks+ ETFs, for buyer + seller. Stocks/ETfs are a much better investment +trade than autos, unless one is auto dealer.LOL Like Dave Ramsey says the Chevy ad '' like a rock'' is the deprecating value, like a rock LOL. Most of money made in uptrending bull market is buy high + sell higher+ buy on a correction + sell higher. M Dell made enough throwing newspapers to buy a BMW, as a school kid. I never made that much as a kid or wasted that much money on a new auto. LOL Almost wasted that much money on a 2 news cars LOL. Trading/investing books may lose value like an auto, but have a much better commercial use than a personal auto................................................................ Have to factor in personality. I would not have or buy TSLA or its stock; if I got one/both as gift I would sell asap/asap, .LOL
So true. The day I changed my day trading style was the day I turned positive: Changing from closing out my trades at the end of everyday to keeping my trades for days and sometimes weeks.
@zghorner, don't be too hard on yourself. Speculate is not a dirty word. Everything we do in life we speculate. The stock market needs speculators to function, we provide liquidity, folks off load risks on us.... It is important to be in the market to beat inflation and the depreciation of paper currencies. For some, buy and hold is a profitable niche, for others trading. Good luck and best wishes.
Kind of similar question, worthy of reading: One of the responses: "There's a reason professional traders have a fixed base salary + bonuses from performance. Trading full time as a retail trader is a terrible idea unless you have other sources of income that can sustain your basic needs (rent/mortgage, food, transport, insurance etc). You'll have days with bad drawdown, occasional margin calls if you don't manage well and the occasional black swan. Without a stable source of income you'll try to make riskier trades to make up for losses. Doing this on forex is even worse - it's the most manipulated market in the world. You'd be better of getting some source of income (heck, driving Uber works too) and trading on the side to augment it."
%% Most of the millions + billions are made in the stock/ETF market, by market makers + specialists + regular persistent investors............................................................................
I’m a member of WSB and love it but man that place is more toxic than anything. That is exactly the style of trading I need to stay away from as it is basically degenerate gambling 90% of the time. edit: I do appreciate your help and comments though.