Day one in stocks was profitable, but I had studied price action by hand for three years before, then I got bright idea to add long term commodities four years after I started then dropped $105k over seven years(WTF was I thinking?) - been profitable each of past nineteen years. Then day trading futures took another seven years of losing 100k - been profitable past seventeen years. Somewhere in there day traded stocks, never really had bad beginning in stocks. In options, always used them as a hedge or credit spreads. Spreads is like breakeven. After thinking upon it, I truly wished I never went into futures back in the eighties, although I do well now, I lost out by years of losing and profits from stocks were being sucked out by futures. I burned through like fifteen futures accounts. It took awhile for me to learn being smart doesn't make profits in futures, you have to work your rump off backtesting/forward testing. Ego has to be checked at the door, trade aggressive but conservative. For me it has developed into learning how not to lose than making wild enormous profits, those also have wild enormous drawdowns. Perseverance
@bhardy307 Another thing about money managment. I always have minimum 100% of my trading capital, saved as save capital on my bank account. Of course you can save more, but not if you want to trade big. I like to trade with much money, so i always had it with the 100% / 100% rule. Means, i have saved 3M ⬠on the bank, and i trade with 3M⬠on my trading accounts. So the safed money always grows, while your buying power for securities dealing keeps growing too, to push you to the next levels of entertainment in the biz.........
How can it be harder to go from 1k to 2k than from 100 to 1000?? What the hell are you guys trading with 100?
When I trade with a $100, it feel like nothing, so I am inclined to leverage at a much higher level. That $1000 seems to be psychological barier for me. I start taking bad risks and find myself right down at $100 again. I am trading gold. It requires a $2 deposit to trade 1 ounce of gold. So, in theory $100 buys the right to trade 50 ounces. In other words, $50 change in my equity for every $1 change in the price of gold.
yes, it's a huge step when you move from ebay to CME. The buyers on CME seem to be a lot more informed. I've found it's a lot easier to move 5,000 bushels of corn if you post a nice picture of it next to your offer.
The mocking oldtim(er) is at it again. By the way, in this day an age, when you can risk $50 to $100 at a time to learn how to trade, you are an absolute and complete idiot if you choose instead to make a large, several thousand, deposit and trade with this, because in the vast majority of cases you will lose it all no matter how large or small your deposit. Obviously, I am talking about people like me who are learning how to trade. You bigshots can risk however much you want.
Thanks. Actually, I started with a tiny $2000 amount that I was willing to risk. I have this money set aside in a savings account. At any given time I am only risking about $100 in a trading account while I try to learn. I have killed a few of those $100 accounts so far.