I strongly recommend that you don't quit your job. You can trade forex at night, futures in afterhours, or work on backtested systems while still working and saving. Starting out with $50k in capital and only one years' reserves with the idea of using 10x leverage right off the bat is a sure path to blowing all your savings. You need more like $100k in capital minimum, 5+ years of savings, and be prepared to invest at least four or five years of fulltime work before seeing a dime - with no guarantees. If you find a genuine mentor who will teach you his/her exact system and edge, work with you one-on-one, hour after hour and day after day, in the live market, for a period of at least several months, then your odds improve dramatically - but this is extremely rare. Likewise people have become successful with less time and preparation than indicated above, but you can't bet on emulating them. The task is already hard enough and you need to give yourself a chance to survive the learning curve. Trying to become a trader is like starting from zero with the dream of arguing cases in the Supreme Court or doing complex brain microsurgery. Add that you risk your own capital, have no income whatever during the journey, and the prize for second place is loss of your savings. It's possible but it takes many years of perseverance, and a bit of luck. Not to discourage but just to lay out the reality, good luck with your journey.
If you're going to be swing trading on a daily or weekly time frame there's no need to quit your job, you can easily do your analysis and orders in the evening.
I am also an engineer. We engineers take the given situation as a thing to challenge in our subconscious. That leads us to write leaner software, build stronger and cheaper bridges, design smaller circuits. But that notion unfortunately leaded me to go counter trend trading setups. After all, we are the smart ones who first realize that trend is ended. Be wary of your self and catch yourself in the following mood. "There is a trend going on, but it went too far, will reverse soon"and you are waiting for reversal signs on 144 tick charts.
most of you don't understrand the path to success. its one step after failure, maybe about 5000 failures. remember that, then check my thread in the chitchat section for some real profitable trades. there is profitable trading, you just got to be better and more experienced then the other side taking your trade. stop fucking thinking this is a walk in the park, this is equivalent to WAR, you better get your shit together, be more experienced, have enough troops ( aka money) to beat the other dood taking your trade. That or prepared to have your head lopped off or your bank account. There is $$$$$$$$ in this game, but only after 5000 failures. ========== bunch of pussies
A great place to start is www.investors.com. It's where I started twelve years ago. Here's some books that are amazing and will teach you what trading is all about: -How to Make Money in Stocks -Reminiscences of a Stock Operator -Market Wizards and New Market Wizards I've read all of these books multiple times. By the way, trading is primarily about psychology. I'm in a similar position to you right now. I found your post when I googled "career as trader." I am passionate about trading and investing. Let's keep in touch my friend!
1. No prop firm would teach you how to develop a working trading strategy. There are very few attainable edges, if any, that exist in the most commonly traded instruments such as futures & equities. All a prop firm will do, at best, is provide you a platform to trade at reasonable costs, leverage, teach you some basics and provide an environment of traders. The prop firms that pay a salary are very rare and have been decreasing in numbers. There is one that is quite serious, First New York Securities, but it is extremely hard to get into it. 2. That's not a plan, that is just dreaming. 3. 3 months? It takes at least a year to develop a somewhat profitable trading strategy and then it requires constant tweaking. Even back in much much easier times for daytrading, new guys were told to give it at least 9 months. Keep your day job and treat trading like a hobby. No matter the capital or Buying Power, expecting to even make $100 a day is quite unrealistic, because the most likely scenario is that you will lose your money. It's just a question of whether you blow out or slowly bleed it away.
lol this guy wants to make 100k on his FIRST YEAR trading... ya dude why dont u leverage yourself even more (deposit another 100k?) so u can make even MORE money! maybe even 1 million! [/sarcasm]