Do yourself a favor and go slow. Learn the fundamentals of one market and learn to find opportunities where the risk reward fits your personality. Charts are good, but most of the successful and consistently profitable traders I've met understand the fundamentals of their market. Good luck.
It sounds like losing $100 bucks is ripping your account to shreds, LOL ... welcome to mini-pikerville, a place that I didn't even know existed! :eek: And you guys think he "makes sense"? Talk aboud dumb, dumber and dumbest ... the best advice to the OP is to focus on girls and school, in that order. I hope he's smart enough to take it, but I doubt it. But tell you what, here's some more, "a paper trader taking advice from other paper traders is worse than the blind leading the blind", the only thing they're going to do is lead you in front of an oncoming bus. Whatever you do, you're really young and the world is nothing but opportunity, but you're going to need some common sense and wisdom to take advantage of, so good luck.
Good hint. I used this to make the transition from paper trading to actually trading a while back. Now I ease in and out of trades without anxiety, but that is a great way to get the 'feel' of being in the market. The 'feel' for the psychological pain and pleasure associated with being in the green and red.
All this stuff is helpful enough, but in reality its a pretty simple thing Just like the Nike commercials say "Just do it!" Thats the only way.
Best celebrity quote I heard (from Joe DiNapoli) is that it's a 5/50 proposition. It takes about 5 years and tying up $50K to become a successful trader.
Why do people always assume that traders are going to start losing money, and that it's inevitable? If you know yourself, know your strategy, study and prepare for the markets, and keep your discipline above emotion, what's the difference? Honestly, if there's no mental toughness there, then why begin trading???
Yes, I do agree with you. Anyway, I received advice from a trader who suggested that I join a trading chat room and just watch, listen, and analyze. What do you think of trading rooms? And do you have any chat room recommendations for a swing trader? Thanks for your help!
I'll tell you this as someone who ran one for a long time, and was very good at it in my own very humble opinion. 90% of them are a waste of time, maybe more since I'm not doing it anymore If you want a free room you can check out look into #Mainstreet on othernet. Toni does a great job, and it is and will remain free as far as I know. I'm in there from time to time as my health and time allow. Really thought what I said in my prior post is the only way to do this thing. You just gotta do it.
I'm not sure DiNapoli was saying much about "mental toughness" with that remark. It was more a reference to the learning curve. I think your comments are on the money about stratedgy, preparation, and discipline cover all the bases here. The central theme of remarks here is that the transition comes with taking positions with real money. Be as ready as you can for that by having some kind of trade / money management plan in place when you take a position. Your account size and time frame will dictate which markets to avoid (ie don't over trade your capital). When I was a kiddie (circa 1979) I caught a ride (hitchhiking home from college) with someone who was a trader (driving a new 911 Carrera). He said he learned the business from a friend in 3 months and never had a losing year in his 9 years trading. His major in college was "English Literature", not a financial major. Markets were probably simpler to trade back then. I didn't discuss much with him about trading, but he did remark that one of the core skills was keeping losses small. Best of Luck!