dude...I totally respoect you for putting your story "out here"...do you ever trade options?what about futures?I guess with only $4,000 you are only able to go long?..can you short ETF's with $4,000?best to you man...go for it!
Yes I can short, I have margin ( 12k buying power).I mostly do 100 share trades now, options are too confusing, although i did see a thread of 1 guy, taking 2000 to 104,000 from august to november trading options only..pretty impressive. I want to get better at stocks, before I touch options. Yeah, it sucks, but what can I do.
Just quit trading while you still have some money left, you will never make it in this game while you have that kind of attitude. Think of it this way - if someone wants to make it as a boxer, and in sparring they keep holding their hands low and their chin up and get knocked out, their coach will tell them what they did wrong and how to rectify the error. The guy that next time keeps his hands up and chin down, he has a chance to make it. The guy who keeps his hands down and chin up the second time, and then when called on it comes out saying how it's rigged, or how the other guy is bigger or faster, or some other BS excuse - that guy will never make it. You are that other guy, and until you have a radical change in attitude you will always be that other guy - the bum.
How so? A retired person is usually 60+. Conventional investment wisdom & typical financial planner advice is to have a government bond allocation equal in percentage terms to your age or a bit more. So a typical retiree would have 60-80% in government bonds (some TIPS, some 5-10 year Treasuries). Government bonds were the best performing asset class in 2008, recording their strongest gains in years. Someone with a 60% bonds 40% stocks allocation (quite aggressive for a retired person) MADE MONEY in 2008. Someone with an 80/20 allocation made even more money. Any retired person who lost big money in 2008 was a gambler, or an ignorant fool.
Cutten , I don't agree with you here. Lot of old timers had invested in GM|<C<WM...ect. and they'd gone through few bear markets , and this should of , could of BS doesn't do any good to anybody. As I said I blame myself , and I know I'll come back , I've done it before. I'm not gonna trade that much for a while , that's it.
dont trade to make up for past losses, if you do this then you got losing attitude, trade from fill to fill from one overb zone to another, and vica versa, sorry to say but when i read all this, i see your clearly not ready, rookie traders need to trade papermoney or lose 80% of their value to get that god moment and actually work on capital preservation rather than MAKING BIG BUCKS IN A FEW DAYS.