To begin with, forget about earning "side money". Instead, concentrate on not losing a lot of money on a single trade. With $2000 you can open a margin account with Interactive Brokers and swing-trade 100 shares of QQQ or a big-cap tech stock. Don't use leverage unless you absolutely must.
DONT BORROW MONEY TO TRADE, teh market will always be here so dont feel you have to rush... i started w/ 2000 myself. focus on money management and avoiding big losers, using the 1-2$ rule can help at first but stick to you rrisk management whatever you use...
Thanks for the info Jack. I'll be taking a look at those files and see if I can figure it out. I might just use the $2000, play around on a simulator a bit, and later in the year use that $2000 (and whatever else I've earnt through my job) to test out any strategies I've developed. Just wondering if things like government bonds or blue chip stocks make much money (specially if you only have $2000)?
Worked my way through undergrad on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile exchange .... Why not attempt to find a part time job related to trading at an investment firm, trading house, or if you are lucky enough to be near a major exchange, on the floor or in the backoffices of the exchange ? IMHO it takes a bit of experience to know how markets behave and how to make money trading - I didn't start risking my own capital until after I had been working in the markets for several years. ... Its always cheaper to let someone else train you on their dime ....
Bonds and blue chips do not make the quality cut. They are not good enough. What makes money is stocks that repeat over and over consistantly. You can count on about a !0% gain out of a possible 20% every 6 to 8 days. A typical person whose has gotten the stuff I gave you and learned it himself, reported to me (by driving over from California to Phoenix, that his first six months averages were 11.1% for a cycle of 6.6 days average. What he did was just come to understand how the routine goes as you see it defined and then he set it up in C language to cut through a low of fooling around. He improved it after the first six months by about 20%. There are a lot of others posting in this thread. They sort of sound like they do not have a comprehensive approach at this point for what ever reason. Let this guide you a little bit. Until you have an approach to iteratively refine, you are going to languish as they are demonstrating to you they are for relatively long periods of time. The reason it is good for four of you to work together is just like homework happens. Usually someone can get an answer if a bunch of people are working on it. You will see on the clearstation what I mean when you fill in a sheet on a good stock to trade. clearstation shows about six months. If you have 5 20% cycles in six months for about 150 stocks, you simply rotate your money through them. Most people take about two months to get up to speed (making about 30% permonth on their money.per month). The thing that is nice about all this is that you get to know what you are doing and making money becomes a lot of fun. I limit myself to owning 100,000 shares of one stock( think 30 dollars a share) as part of 4 to 6 threads of money that are similar. It takes about 20 trades to get in and 30 to get out on a given day. My best shot for a 100,000 share stock holding was 17 points net in my exit. It is a real workout for your broker...LOL... If you do like making money this way. Then you can study stuff in school so you can do whatever you want. Personally I like to do stuff that is new and solves problems that come up for society. Usually i write a book or two about it after I have complete getting the "fix" for the problem institutionalized. You get to meet a lot of neat people along the way doing this too.
1. Do NOT test with your money. Your valuable cash should NOT enter the picture until you have clearly become familiar with the business of trading and know the risks, which are many. 2. Take advantage of the fact that you are young and have the time to learn. In a few years you will look back and appreciate what you did for yourself. 3. Create a system and stick with it for basic income. Your dollars are best spent on backtesting software (I recommend Investor RT) so that you can establish your own path and not rely on the B.S. of the "experts". Keep things simple and logical, and do NOT trade a dime until you have a system you can be completely confident in. Discretionary trading is for those who have the wisdom that comes from years of experience and hard knocks.
Jack, We've been reading the sheets for a while, and don't really understand it. On the sheet "pricur2", does it mean that first volume rise is equivalent to a long price rise?
As a normal good person, my suggestion is negative to what you intend to do at the moment for the same reasons that many had given above. As a trader and salesperson in the market, hi, welcome on board with whatever you can get. I guess you will be PM'ed further helpful information by my colleagues. No need to thank me. You are welcome.