It appears you're a realistic person. Here's a scenario i used with my nephew. Save up 25k to buy a reasonable car. Take that amount and open a trading account. Trade to generate cash flow to cover car lease payment without drawing from your initial capital, approximately 1%/month. Once successful, in addition to the car lease payment, trade to generate monthly insurance expense, and then fuel etc. Nothing like hard money account, trading to cover a real life expense. This model is scalable ...
====am i ready?!=== Definitely not ! And let me explain to you why. First of all those who believe they are ready (even when mistakenly so) do no ask others if they are! Secondly, the presence of fear is an indication that you still either do not completely believe in the viability of your method (and maybe rightfully so) or in the viability yourself as a trader capable of executing your method (and maybe rightfully so). Thirdly, you lack the motivation (because concisely or subconsciously you feel what I just described above). And that is why you come here - to get motivation from the people. So if you start now very soon when shit will hit the fan you will start peeing in the pants and there will be nobody to motivate you to continue through the difficult period. So what to do? You have to continue on demo... Until you reach the moment when you you completely at ease with your method and with yourself as the trader. When that moment comes you will feel it ! And at that time you will not need to come to people for motivation (people will come to you!), you will radiate confidence (and its not going to be a phony confidence) and you surely will know that you ready. And when you start trading real money the shit will surely eventually hit the fan, but you will not be peeing the pants. You will stay and continue trading by the method. And even if at some moment you will decide that you need to stop to reconfigure the method, to add something to it, to do additional research, the motivation will be there it will not evaporate, because you still will be believing that you can do it.
Did you triple the account three separate times? Only trading something once can get you into a lull of setting you as months pass you being more conservative if you did well in beginning. You asking us if you are ready is your subconscious know you are not ready and need more demo. 20-30%? are you joking? if that all you going, you going to maybe need six separate times as it takes you longer to make this amount as opposed to day trader who should be able to make 200%+ a year to be ready to attempt trading, and yes 100% goes to fees if underfunded. Good luck.
Nearly all traders go through this FUD. "You will be ready when you can take the pebble from my hand, Grasshopper" -- Master Po
but the only way to reduce it to 1% loss is to put more money in the account At this moment, you're looking at it the entirely wrong end..
You should start trading, but start with a small position size when you're doing so. It's hard to differentiate between luck and skill with just a few years of experience.
I was... until I read Lugar's post.... Allow me to paraphrase: ____ "Trading options is like a harnessing the power of a budding tree in an ever diminishing rain forest on the outskirts of a polluted city starving for firewood to fuel their quest for ever higher stocks. The markets are difficult but easily beat if one is prepared with an ever changing perspective of the reality of what is and what is not in a constantly fluctuating environment of chaos based on the irrationality and self obsession of the major players". "It takes open-mindedness and yet a certain darkness of self resolve culminating in a oneness with the lonely pursuit of being the one person that can leverage the power of individual market prowess into cash gains for more compounding. Its like a cross between the movie "Wall Street" and an inner view of the psyche of Ayn Rand writing "When Atlas Shrugged"... Its part art part science... the nebula forever evolving into the compounded effort of the harmonious eruptive volcano and a Pacific monsoon spewing ash into an aquamarine environment of small fish being devoured by killer sharks". High 5. Make ET great again in 2018.
start live with very small account and try untill you are certain that your system works and u start mastering your emotions during live trade when all works start increasing the amount and manage your risk and leverage accordingly . Most common mistake is overtrading when every thing goes well dont over trade instead do other activities. Your mental health is more important than trading. keep things simple good luck
where is the fun in trading to cover your expenses either aim for big (go big or go home ? )or don't trade and focus on professional career 'employment jobs' which is healthier includes fixed income for expenses and can save a lot of stress . I
You're ready; if you have the right screeners, a direct access broker and the right hardware. This morning your screeners would have brought you to the stock IMTE at which time, 9:38 AM, you buy $10,000 worth, at $4.00 a share, you then sell at 12:32 PM for $40 a share and put $90,000 in the bank. After the 10,000 hours it takes to master this, you will be a billionaire. That is of course unless you are trading some other financial instrument?