How Did You Get Started?

I haven't read all the 200 threads that have to do with getting started, but the common theme appears to be "how do I get started?" or "how do I start?" What I am interested in is how you actually got started. Was it a book? A TV program? A movie? A website? A Google search? Putting aside the reason(s) for your interest in learning how to trade in the first place, how did you begin?

 

I was disabled at 57. The irs said, "No problem, you'll get your first check in two years. Great!

I had 60k all in treasury bonds. Starting trading these from data off
of CNBC. Made 24 k the first year with no computer.

 

I've often wondered if the first trade doesn't set you up for life. If you go to the track the first time and walk away with zero, you are likely to say, "Never Again!"

But if you hit a long shot, it's more like, "So, that's how you make money!"

 

Started with Peter Lynch's Beating the Street when I was 13. Moved on to more complex after that.

 

Started after I lost a great portion of my retirement account (so much for listening to the expert (a dumbass account manager))

I studied... and studied... and studied – read anything & everything imaginable mkt / trading related

Paid for a training class…, actually a few

Subscribed to a couple of services

Finally thought I knew it all.., or at least enough – so I commenced to trading

That’s when the real education (and my repeated ass kicking) started

And why I have much contempt for the "experts' in this business


Good times

RN

 

13?!?

 

In early 2008, I'd never even logged into my retirement accounts though they'd been around for over a decade. My husband bought dividend stocks back in the day and that was that. The accounts grew over time, but there was a lot of chatter in 2007 that a big crash was coming due to the mortgage markets. We pretty much cashed out between Nov 2007 and Jan 2008.

Years before, my husband had put a list of the stocks that were in my IRAs on my web homepage, though I'd never paid much attention to them. But now that we were mainly in cash and a nice correction had occurred in Jan 2008, I started looking at the them each day. One day I noticed that a stock had dropped 5% in a single day. That seemed like a lot! I clicked on it and looked for news for why it dropped. There was no news.

And I had the thought that would change my life: If it dropped 5% in one day for no reason, it should go up again.

And with very sweaty palms I logged into one of my IRAs, first time ever, spent what seemed like an eternity finding the BUY button, and totally clueless, I bought a nice chunk of shares. Within a couple days I had a nice profit showing and I asked my husband what I should do and told me about a trailing stop. So I trailed and booked a very nice gain.

I was hooked. The two of us would trade anything that dropped 8% overnight, expecting a bounce over the next few days. We called them "Doozy Downers" and we had a 100% win rate over the next few months because the market was in a bull run off the Jan correction and we never used a stop loss; we just waited for the position to show a profit.

I remember walking the dog at the park one day and calculating our exponential gains over the next couple years. I came to the conclusion that we'd have at least $10 million by then.

As the Bible saying goes, "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."

 

I don't remember how I became aware of the stock market. When I was 15 IBM had a 4 for 1 split and was at $ 75. I bot 4 shares with the expectation that in a year it would be back to $ 300 and I'd use the money to buy a used '67 Mustang. I eventually made a profit on it due to dividend reinvestments but never got the car.

In college I read Investors Business Daily and made money off some of the stocks I found there. I remember in particular Zenith Labs, a $ 20 stock that would go up a buck or two a day, run up to $ 40 and split. Did that a couple times I think. Watching that Zeni ticker go by on the old FNN was great entertainment.

Losses ? Absolutely.

Reading the first Market Wizards was when the light bulb went on that it REALLY is possible to make money doing it.

From there, same story as everybody else. Fundamental analysis , technical analysis, Elliot wave, cycles, books, indicators, margin calls, etc,

A couple years ago after a several year break from the markets I decided I would absolutely and finally learn to trade.

 

And he chatted with me briefly, stole my methodology and now front runs all my orders