I'd advise against putting too much time into this without a mentor/coach. Don't put your life on hold with the idea that you're going to figure out how to be a trader all by yourself. That's what it sounds like you are wanting to do. If you are going it alone then at least have a job and work on trading in free time. I hate it when people go on about "I've met never a [insert thing they think is impossible here]" but in reality I've never heard of a successful trader who did it on their own without any mentoring. You should at least be chatting/skyping with someone or a small group in real-time every day, or at a prop firm where you can network with other traders. The best advice I have seen is: Anything very rich and deep and difficult to master, must be studied and practiced under the guidance of someone who has faced all the same challenges and attained a high degree of mastery. Although in one sense day trading is a totally solitary pursuit, waged inside your own mind, heart, and physiology, there are so many aspects to be encountered in the process that most people cannot possibly navigate them by âreinventing the wheelâ along the way. As in any generality, maybe some freak of nature, or some one in a billion genius out there may be the exception to this rule. But letâs just say, donât count on that being you. Try to get valuable guidance from someone truly qualified to help you in a personalized process of finding yourself and the strategy you can implement with conviction and confidence. On how to find such a mentor among the minefield of snake oilers? Wish I had a good answer for you!
Well, I originally posted this threat in mind-june looking for some advice and I got some good input with a dash of cynicism. Oh, and an offer from someone in asia to train me in a month for $25k! Ha! I continued studying the lingo by reading everything i could on investopedia. All specialized systems have their own language so I had to really get it all in my head. Then I began paper trading every morning in IB until I was consistently making $900 a day with $35k "dollars". At the same time I was using a data feed provider that let's me backtest data and I developed a few trading strategies: 1. A mean reversion strat. 2. A breakdown strat 3. A breakout strat 4. A bottom picking strat All strategies were backtested for months and I made sure to avoid backtesting errors such as postdictive error. The average return per month is approx. 18% but I'm continuing to refine them. In the evenings i run a pre-market scan to identify stocks with specific trends that indicate they may perform according to my 4 strategies above and i load those in a watch list with price alerts. So I've been trading full time with real money the past month and am successful so far. I have had trouble sticking to my trading plan eg. getting out of losers or getting out of winners to quickly. So I'm working on sitting on my hands as "the trend is my friend." I still consider myself a newbie albeit a profitable one and am REALLY enjoying it so far. Just wanted to update because i got some good advice on here and it helped me out. I also wanted to let "intradaybill" know it took me 8 months, not "5 - 10 years under strict supervision by a master." But it probably helps that I score in in the 95% for intelligence.
start small...100 share positions. Then when you are profitable go to 200, then 500, then 1000, etc. Don't trade for a living or commit a lot of cash until you can make money with 100 shares.