Excellent advice in this thread so far. Your business background may be helpful in analyzing fundamentals, but the actual act of day trading is a whole beast on its own. Buying low and selling high sounds incredibly easy, but I don't think there's a single person on here who hasn't busted ass to make it happen. It takes time to acclimate to the market, and it also takes a lot of investment ($$$$$) in order to see significant returns. And if those investments don't work out....you could be in a far worse situation. I wholeheartedly agree that learning day trading can be a fun and profitable adventure, but as a newcomer you should not rely on it as a primary source of income. Unless you're a wizard at picking stocks your whole family may suffer either from lost income or the sheer amount of stress the market places on you. It's been mentioned many times before, but I really feel that most trading books are worthless. You can find just about anything you need to know through the internet and experienced traders (like on this site), and using a sim like investopedia's can be a good test as to how successful you are at picking entry and exits. The market is volatile as hell right now, and Bernanke hasn't even given his Jackson Hole speech yet, so it's a pretty rough time to be entering the market. But, if you've got the smarts and the mindset there's no reason you can't make it happen...I just encourage you to get some practice in to make sure you're able to consistently make gains before investing serious money. Good luck sir.
Now we're getting somewhere. When you're at the end of the road, there may be a tinge of regret. Time for a sappy adage. "Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all." If you've ran a successful business, it'll be hard to reign in all that energy and hubris. You don't say what business you were in but there must be a sector that you can invest in which parallels your business.
Pondering Man, I am getting ready to go through a very similar experience except that I am a few years older and will have enough to retire on. Getting my company ready to sell has taken a couple of years and I have learned a lot and met a lot of smart people. Are you selling your company through a M&A banker or Real Estate person? This is important. If you are using a M&A banker, which I highly suggest, get to know that person real well. They have deals cross their desk all the time where companies are looking for investment capital. It is like legal insider trading. My M&A guy just happens to be my cousin so it was easier to build that relationship but he had never told me about it before I used him to help me with my company. Between the two of us we brought in a couple of other people and have invested in or bought out 3 other companies so far. These guys get to pick the best of the best and they see a lot of potential deals every month. There is still risk but it is more calculated risk. Hope that helps...
============= Pondering Man/family; IBD helps, thats some more wisdom.. Invest small [like 1 /one share] MSFT, SPY, GLD,or SLV [invest small ,invest small , look for patterns, invest small; till you can make a profit. And fine to have a big savings [REt***, IRA account]...; but find something you like to do. James Cash{JC] Penny worked till 95 years old. Wisdom is profitable to direct.
My advice buy when the market is going up sell when the market is going down and remember trading can be a spectators sport. If things get wild stay out and let the "pros" beat each other up.
Don't sell you business. It may be hard work, but now you know you can sell your business if need-be. Better to grow it into something large enough to retire from. I know the idea of cashing out is tempting, but people tend to do this just before the big money is about to be made. What is it the buyer sees that you don't?
In many buy-out cases it's the skill or vision or network connections the buyer has that the seller doesn't that makes it work, not the business itself. It's possible that both the buyer and the seller are making the right choice.
This guy was in your shoes: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10237 and he made it.
Whatever you do, do NOT touch the principal. If you really want to try your hand in the market, use the interest as capital, but do NOT touch the principal. If you cannot make money from a $10K account, then unlikely you will make money from a $1mil account. Even 0.5% interest is better than a 5% loss.
sounds like BS. You just pulled off a 2,000,000 cash sale during a depression and you are on here asking opinions from strangers with fake names on the internet? My advice is to use your parents computer for starcraft instead of playing fantasy big man on ET.