Anchored VWAP, MACD and Fibonacci is not going to work out for you. University and going for an actual job in the industry or alternatively some other entrepreneurial pursuit should be your main plan, not trading on your own as a retail trader. A realistic timeline for you to have a chance at becoming a successful retail trader on your own is ten years minimum with a huge amount of work to the point of obsession where you'll neglect other areas of your life. And keep in mind that's what it takes to just have a chance. No guarantees of success. You will probably think you're the exception, but realistically, you won't be. So think really hard about if you actually want to even try. And if you do go down this path, remember this thread in the future and that you were warned. I was you once. If I could have done it all over, I would have focused 100 % on a career or some other entrepreneurial pursuit and instead invested my income in the market. Alternatively swing trading stocks (which can be done while holding a job or doing something else). There's a lot of smoke and mirrors in the industry and it's easy to be fooled by survivorship bias. With the rise of social media it's even worse these days with so many clowns on YT/Twitter which are selling courses and private rooms which honestly ain't making shit themselves beyond the subscription fees they're charging. But for a newbie it's easy to get fooled. And for the few actual successes, you don't see the thousands of people who actually failed at this. In comparison - is trading equity-vol easier? If so, why? And what are the chances that the OP on his own as a retail amateur can become a profitable equity-vol trader? I would guess they're still slim.
Motivation is not an edge. The Fibonacci stuff just exposes their level of naivete. There are methods to arb term structure edge (x) and skew (y) which are known at the inception of the trade. Sticky local vol (modality), relative value (single name at n-bps over index), quasi-dispersion, etc. Once you're in, you wait for the drift in whatever exposure. The randomness and noise of day trading is enticing because it feeds their emotional need for a win. No need for vol-stops/targets if it's green. There are event/news trades in SN that are exploitable. That's where I would start.
Beta (to index) is available to everyone and requires no market experience. 18yo = time, no money. 70yo = money, no time. Kids don't want to hear to plow their cash into index funds bc they don't have any. The grift of day trading is strong.
I never used VWAP so I can’t comment. MACD is only OK for confirming divergences, but you’ll probably become a better trader if you’ll remove all indicators and just leave on price bars and volume on your charts. When starting out you need to limit the variables, or you’ll be spinning wheels. Fibonacci work reasonably well on certain markets/stocks, on some it simply does not work. The good thing about fibs is that they can be quite objective method to trade. Here are few basic guidelines on fibs: Fibs work well on SP500 and on some major mega cap stocks (backtest whch work and which don’t). Forget about using them on small and mid cap stocks. Fibs also work well on major FX pairs, and Gold. Use them on higher TFs and major swing points, don’t clutter charts with fibs from smaller swings or you’ll go crazy. However, I would not use of fibs on intraday charts (the lowest TF I’d draw them on is H2). The key is understaning in how to use fibs, which swings to pick and which levels to watch and which levels you can ignore. To get you started, look for confluence of fib levels and alternative price projections (APP). Then look for price action around those levels to confirm PA reversals. (Robert Miner is good with fibs and APP levels, but he mixes it with basic Elliott Wave. His books is worth studying in spite of the EW. He’s very systematic when it comes to combining fibs and APPs when it comes to indices and FX, but with stocks you’ll need to stick ONLY to those which respond to fibs.) Regarding whether or not you’ll will make it, the bad news is that the odds are against you. But if you’ll become committed, and providing that you don’t have major psychological issues, then eventually you can get there (it takes few years). The following image is from Mark Minervini:
My wife is testament to me there is not "one way to trade". Everything she does is nigh opposite to my beliefs. She doesn't code at all, whereas I do. She has her charts full of canned indicators like MA's and RSI and some other stuff, I don't do indicators. She spends all day and night watching youtube, that nonsense drives me crazy. She predominantly trades gold stocks, I avoid gold mostly - too hard. She is Asian and Budhist, I say "fuck off religion". Yet despite all this, she pulls in some serious money, no kidding, she makes a tonne of dosh trading, better than me atm.
I have not finished reading this thread, but I was thinking the same thing... But I didn't really notice anything odd about the paragraph breaks. It just feels like the writing is awfully sophisticated for an 18-year old. And this is a bit of a red flag: His profile says he's from Texas. In American English, the word doctorate is not used to refer to the degree that is granted by a medical school in the USA. It is used to refer to other doctoral degrees, such as a PhD or a PsyD. Someone who graduates from medical school in the USA does not get a doctorate. They get an MD or a DO (unless they enrolled in a dual-degree program, e.g., it is possible to get an MD and also get a PhD in biochemistry at the same time). Yes, the MD and the DO are technically "doctoral" degrees, in some sense of the word. But in American English, that's just not how people talk--or write. It is commonly referred to as a medical degree. And that feels like the kind of mistake that an AI program would make. This just doesn't feel like something written by an 18-year old. The writing style is too sophisticated and polished. Something like this could possibly be written by a kid who graduated with honors from a top-tier college prep school, the kinda place that charges $36K per year. That kinda kid would not be talking about bypassing college. And he would have connections and resources through his family to get introduced to people who work in finance and investment banking. He wouldn't be hanging out here, saying that he will "take on my own path completely."
Hey, love your passion and enthusiasm for markets. Given your interest, I recommend you position yourself for a career in the buy side (hedge fund), which is the professional arena for risk taking in financial markets. The best way to do that right now is through an internship. Most banks will run summer analyst programs for college sophomores and juniors, which they then hire from. If you are looking for something more educational in nature (more mentorship), I run a free/educational internship program for students. The bulk of my interns have gone on to work on Wall Street across investment banking, sales-trading, and equity research. Some have decided to trade their own accounts in my style. About me— portfolio manager with 10+ years of experience across the street (sales-trading, m&a, and investment management). I currently run a discretionary long/short equity strategy that’s similar to how pods at p72, citadel, and millenium trade equities. If you are truly interested in succeeding and want equity or global macro exposure, then this could be a good fit. If you prefer to trade vol, other asset classes, or quantitive styles, I’m not ideal. One caveat is that, despite what you might have read or “learned” so far about the markets, technical analysis is largely bullshit and you’ll need to unlearn a big aspect of that. If that’s not something you can do, then we aren’t a good fit.
In the Wikipedia entry for technical analysis, the very last section (before the references) is called "See Also," and it's a list of other Wikipedia entries that may be relevant. The second one on the list is apophenia. correlation ≠ causation