I make my money two ways in real estate. 1. I change houses every two years as there are no capital gains or taxes of any kind on the profit as long as it was your primary residence for 24 of the last 60 months. I buy right & "architectural digest" the house to make $50K- $80K every two years - tax free. I take approximately half the profits for living on and half put into the next house and paying off all debt; so I have no car payments, credit card debt, student loans, etc - so my monthly cost of living is fairly low. My next home should be without a mortgage all together. 2. I have been a real estate agent for two years and now I work mainly off my referrals which made me $40K last year and does not take a lot of time as I only look to close a few properties a month. It's not a lot of money but enough for my family to live off with the cushion from the last house sale. I am mainly looking to take these future house profits which is what the $25K in checking is part of to make better % returns in trading if possible.
Trading journal, as suggested by others here...is SO important. I find that it's not fun...it's time consuming, and its work, which means its NECESSARY. You'll find yourself thinking, rationalizing, and deciding against doing certain things as you write down your thoughts and strategies in your journal. It's much better than just firing away impulsively and actually trading things before thinking them through. That leads to disaster.
Jason586, First of all, do NOT start with options. Every couple days some new trader posts something about trading a certain "strategy" without knowing anything about options. You have to dedicate much more time to trading options successfully than just trading a stock or future. IF you become consistently profitable trading then you can decide to spend a couple years learning about options. If you decide to trade then you need to know there is a very good possibility you will lose that 25k. Most traders burn through money before they end up becoming profitable. If you are talking about managing your investments, then that is a different story. Swing trading non leveraged stock is far different than actively trading for a living. My two questions for you are: what percentage return do you want/need to make on your 25k, and are you aware that, of those who try, exceptionally few traders make a living trading?
(You knew this was coming, LOL). Since it takes a $million or more to engage in strategies that work well, and produce a good 6 figure income (M&A, opening only, pairs, market making, etc. etc.) vs. trying to pick a stock or a market direction...you might consider finding out what professional (licensed) trading is all about, from our group of guys. www.stocktrading.com/training.html http://www.stocktrading.com/trader10030.html Don
"My two questions for you are: what percentage return do you want/need to make on your 25k, and are you aware that, of those who try, exceptionally few traders make a living trading?" I don't need a certain percentage to live on, and I do understand that it is possible to burn through it all. I put $40K into an account in 2000 and made a little in oil, a little more in cocoa, and lost even more in cattle without really knowing anything. So, I closed my account and cut my losses in 2002. I would like to make less risky trades even if the return is not as great. Again, I am new to this and I do not have grand hopes of making lots of money or being good at trading for some time. I assume that like most other activities I partake such as real estate, golf, etc. - it will take hard work, focus, intelligence, and bit of talent. If I could average $1000 a month profit in the first year, I would be more than happy. I have my lifestyle down to costing between $2000-$2500 a month total. I do understand very few make a living at trading that statistics do confirm. I am probably looking to increase my knowledge of trading and increase my yearly % return more than having to grind out a certain amount in profit a month. I am interesting in a less trading, less stress (maybe) strategy I hope this answered the questions correctly. Thanks! Jason
My method was to take 15,000 and open a portfolio. The other 5,000 I opened a daytrade account. I thought this was a conservative approach, actually I was veered towards this method and cannot take credit. its working michele
If you want to earn more than 4% a year than move the money to t-bills and open a demo account and spend the next year studying and practicing analyzing and picking stocks (you are far from ready for options or futures). Then in a year's time you would have made more money (higher rate of return in t-bills over checking account) and learned a lot of info for free. read different books and talk to different people for guidance and direction. best deal out there.
For our retirement/portfolio, my wife and I are both about 30, and we have contributed to our Roth IRAs (can't beat tax free compounded interest) the maximum allowed since 2003 (plus some she had working for Dell before that). It is doing fairly well with 20+% returns in international funds in American Funds as well as some life settlement (buying out life insurance policies) "funds". I enjoy more than anything finding a great deal which has helped me to have a nice lifestyle and do well in real estae with minimum time alloted. I have a lot of time on my hands as we have an 11 month old and my wife is expecting, so we spend a lot of time at the house with our daughter. So, now I am looking to make better use of the time and begin to do more with the extra money we have from selling our home every two years as the next home should be without a mortgage.
I don't mind the hard work. My wife and I tracked every single item we spent on for a year. We broke it all down into categories to realize exactly where we were spending. Then made adjustments and began reducing costs and paying down anything that had interest attached to it. Now, we only have the mortgage which at least we get a write off.
Studying for and passing the series 7 is not very helpful trading but it is useful general knowledge and then you can look at prop firms (nothing against Don but there are a few good ones from which to choose). Are you located near a prop-firm's office, are you willing to spend all day everyday working with someone there? If you are only going to do this from home then studying the good trading books, reading through some threads here, and paper trading are the way to start. By the way, many people feel that at some point in the future China's stock market is going to have a problem and that will cause measurable ripples, so pay attention to your 20%+ funds in your IRA.