Hi all - I've been reading the forums for a few months and now that I'm beginning to take trading more seriously, I'd like to start contributing and taking my trading knowledge to the next level. One thing I lack which seems to be highly recommended by almost all successful traders is a trading mentor or buddy. I focus on US equities but at this point I'm happy to meet up with anyone in the trading community! I'm looking for one of two outcomes: 1) I am a British expat living in Dubai so if there are any full-time or aspiring traders living in Dubai who would like to meet or connect to share and discuss ideas, that would be great. 2) A virtual buddy no matter where you are! Hopefully there's someone out there so I don't have to go it entirely alone.
I was a U.S. expat living in Abu Dhabi from 2010 to 2014, but have since returned to the states. I’ll be curious to see what kind of responses you get to your post. I began trading U.S. equities in 2007 but switched to foreign currency pairs (Forex) in 2011 after moving to the UAE. What style of trading do you prefer, position, swing, day trading, scalping…? Do you use technical analysis, fundamental analysis, or both? Do you follow a particular list of stocks, or do you use some other criteria to determine what goes on your watch list?
Hi expiated, thanks for the response. Well, so far, you are the only response so not well so far. Honestly I didn't expect any but it was worth a shot. To your questions, I'm new enough to trading that I feel I'm still deciding what my style of trading is. So far it has revolved around day trading and scalping. One of the issues with day trading and scalping is that they rely heavily on opening bell moves or, the first two hours of the trading day. As you will know from living over here, the working day finishes at 6pm and during the summer, the NYSE opening bell is 5:30pm local time. That constraint makes me wonder whether I would be best suited to swing trading but I have spent 0 hours studying swing trading and I've invested a lot of time and energy on day trading/scalping. The trade itself is based on technical analysis but, perhaps contrary to many, I think it's also crucial to have an understanding or view of the fundamentals of the market as a whole and a company itself so as to understand the primary trend. I have enough time and interest to study both technical and fundamental analysis so I don't know why I would be a snob to one or the other. I don't follow a particular list of stocks but there seem to be certain ones I gravitate to on a regular basis. I'm still part of the Warrior Trading community so they are my stock scanners! So what led you to switch to FOREX? That is something I know very little about except to say I know the UAE Dirham is pegged to the US Dollar! Are you full time trading or still a hobby?
I hate to say this, but its always best alone. You've picked a loners business. Not saying it can't work out for you, but you will miss out on opportunities when you introduce a new element to your scenario. Trading is personality based and we all seek out what works for us. Even discussing off hours will introduce bias and bias can be deadly. Cheers!
I felt the easiest way for me to be profitable was via day trading, but here in the U.S.A we have a regulation that essentially prevents anyone from day trading whose trading account has a balance of less than $25,000, and the most I ever had in my account was about $12,000. Stocks often gap up or down from one day to the next, and I found this to be a big pain in the behind. It seemed to me that I could have gotten around this problem by trading futures, but from what I understood, this would have required even more funds than trading equities. Another obstacle to my being able to trade stocks the way I wanted was the hassle involved in shorting equities. And finally, I felt like I needed to have multiple thousands of dollars in my account to make trading securities worthwhile, whereas an opening balance of a few hundred dollars is plenty for me when it comes to Forex—not to mention the fact that there is no problem in terms of availability and whatnot when shorting currency pairs (nor must one deal with gaps up or down from day to day).
Hi Zodiac - thanks for the response. I acknowledge but also slightly disagree. I used to play a lot of online poker when I lived in the U.K. (I obviously can't now I live in Dubai but it remains my first love!). I see so many similarities between trading and poker and it's no wonder successful poker players make good traders and vice versa. Anyway, my point is, having someone to discuss poker hands with and ask stupid questions of was, and remains, invaluable in poker. You can be a member of 2+2 or PocketFives (2 big poker forums) but having some buddies you can chat with to discuss things with is priceless.
ET has numerous journals and threads you can be a part of. You can ask questions or look for ideas. It can be your de facto mentor.
I'm based in Dubai, and i'm a successful trader. Happy to answer any questions you might have. Mentorship i wouldn't really do since it wouldn't make much sense for me to give away my trading strategy for free Here's some advice i can give you, take it or leave it, but its based on years of knowledge in this industry: 1) Forget Warrior trading. 99% of all these websites are utter hyped up nonsense. You can check out a review of warrior trading at tradingschools.org. The reason up to 90% of traders who start out fail is exactly because they think they've uncovered the holy grail of knowledge in these type of websites and waste time and energy learning something that is useless. 2) If you want to day trade, fine. Look at futures not equities. 'some' futures trend a lot better than equities, and trading futures doesn't require the PDT $25,000 requirement that all brokers have for equity day traders. 3) If you want to swing trade than learn about Options or better yet, learn about trading spreads. 4) Educated speculation is not the same thing as gambling. Gamblers (professional or otherwise) get slaughtered in these turfs. 5) If i had to condense all my knowledge and experience into one magical word that if understood properly would transform any amateur into an expert trader - that word would be 'probability'. It's such a simple word and most traders take it as an obvious given but few actually understand exactly what it means. My mentor once said, before you take any trade, think of a chair, it needs a minimum of 3 legs to be able to stand without falling, similarly dont take any trade unless you can find a minimum of 3 or more reasons that support the proof that the trade will go in the direction you are expecting. 6) Be robotic in your execution and be emotionally void. Have a plan and don't deviate in the slightest. This is tight-rope walking, no room for mistakes.