This is probably the BEST and most well written piece of advice for ANYONE trying to go full-time trading! ANYONE! Not just this 18 yr old kid. The kid should definitely go to college. Finish it. It's not that hard. And maybe even consider doing a masters or MBA since bachelors are a dime a dozen and are treated as high school diplomas now. And masters are the new bachelors. Let me work the math for you. You go to a college. Major in something in high demand skills like computer science, IT, math, etc. You come out and you are making at least anywhere from $50K-$80K STARTING salary (depending on school, location, employer, etc. etc.) With your $2K account, you think you can generate $50K(on the low end) a year? That's multiplying your account 25X! Even the legendary Richard Dennis can't do that in a year. And $50K is nuttin in the professional working world. Nice white collar jobs easily clear well over $100K plus bonuses and stock options. And it's practically very low risk. Of course you can get laid off. So what? you get another job. Now, I'm not discouraging you from trading. I'm trading on the side as well. hehe. But I have a full-time white collar professional job. I already did my BS, masters, and now working on a second master to bolster my skills to stay competitive. About 10yrs ago, I tried to do fulltime trading. I failed MISERABLY! It takes LONGER than you think to master this game. I'm still a beginner. Unlike other things where the rules of the game are fixed(chess, math, software, music, etc.), markets rules are unknown and constantly changing! You think you mastered one type of markets then it CHANGES. That's why even the old market wizards blow out or not banking it all the time. Consistency is an illusion since there's a large element of randomness. Constant regime shifting. In the 90s bull market, everyone thought they were frickin' geniuses(somewhat like the last few years). It was easy to make money. Then when the bear market came people lost money trading and went back to their jobs or switch paths. Have you mastered bull, bear, range bound, and hundreds of others possible market conditions? No one has. It's a constant learning curve. That's why it's so tough. Now, at your age, you should go to school. And if you have a passion, then trade on the side. Swing trading. Or if you like futures and forex maybe squeeze in a few trades before classes in the morning or at night. Once you get out, you have some valuable marketable skills. Get a steady job then that's where the real fun starts. I've just started doing the math recently. I wished I had not wasted my time doing full-time trading 10yrs ago. But luckily, I was able to get back on professional path given my credentials and skills. Now, I'm getting back to trading but part-time. Here's how I think about it now. Just to make the math simple let's assume you make $100K/yr. You trade on the side and you make $50 a day. That's freakin' peanuts. However, that's like $1K/month times 12 = $12K year. That's like a 12% bonus. Most employees would be psyched with 12% bonus in the corporate world. If you make less than $100K then the percentage is even higher. Caveat, you shouldn't shoot to make exactly $50 a day but $1K a month. Now, a $1K is kinda pathetic in terms of trading. But it's a start. Next, you get consistent then you aim for $2K a month. Now that's $24K a year on top of your salary and benefits. Once you get $5K-$10K month then you are talking some decent money with the stability of a fulltime job. Understand? Because the thing is you will NOT make consistent money every month or week. There are weeks and perhaps months where you are in drawdown. You will lose your mojo or your strategy is not working. Then what? What are you going to live on? Your $2K account doesn't even cover MONTHLY RENT in a major city! But when you have a FT job, you can shrug it off and say to yourself you are in a slum. You can wait it out. Do more research and take a break. In a few weeks or months you can be back at it with new energy and vigor. Whereas when you are in a slump trading FT, that could be the end of you and your career as a trader if you don't manage it right. People spiral downward and start losing more and more money and eventually blow out from the stress of trying to make money to support themselves. I know you are 18 and you wouldn't heed to these advice. But let me tell you this. You either practice trade or real trade 1-2hrs a day while going to school and keep detailed journals to learn from your mistakes. Then get your BS and hopefully MS degrees(that's optional). Go find a decent job. Trade on the side as you build up your account. In fact once you get a full time job you can fund your account to a larger amount which will you a fightin' chance at survival. $2K isn't going to get very far. Do that and in 10yrs, I can guarantee you will make large sums of money from trading. By then you can quit your job and thank me. You say 10yrs?!! WHAT?!! You already will have spent 4yrs in college but remember you would have been trading on the side. So you will have GAINED 4 yrs of trading experience while you get a solid education. Then all you have to do is work another 6 yrs and build up your skills, your account by funding it, and compounding your account from your trading. 10yrs is 28. Before you are 30 you could be making millions per year. Easy recipe. I wished I knew that. It's never too late. That's my plan. I'm NO WHERE near that level. But I figure 10yrs will pass no matter what. Let's try this plan. I think it will work given my experience and what I know about deliberate practice. I mean I'm NOT going to trade FT now since I just recently got back into trading. But I feel like I'm beginning to learn from my old mistakes and steadily improving. I have patience. I got a family and mortgage. No way in hell will I quit my nice professional jobs with good salary, bonuses, benefits, etc. to go trade with any small account. Even if you start with $25K or $50K account it's still very difficult to make a living especially if you got a family to support. But I'm patient. Meet me in 10yrs. It might be shorter than that given I spent probably 3 yrs trading already. I gotta remember to learn from my mistakes, don't repeat the same mistakes, learn new good habits, continue to develop and refine the strategy,execution, etc. Now that I don't have the pressure to make money every single day from trading, I can be more patient and better on my trades. Good luck everyone especially you kid!
at 18 ,i don't know your knowledge of working, college is not for everyone,many fail there also, the theme is can you knuckle down and work your but off, even if you were sweeping floors and carrying lumber on a construction site,you would learn by osmossis or paying attention, the steps involved from start to finish. Once the job was completed ,you could step back and go thru them,and see a structured plan ,what came first,middle and last. All jobs have that in common,and they all have workers of all types, the ones who are a drag on the project and the ones who do the most,there in lies the evident work ethic along with the step back and see the big picture,you need to develop the top work ethic,and you need that plan/structure to succeed. Along with that you need to safeguard your plan, in trading that's money management, and trade selection, you need to figure out a way determine which are the highest probability bets, you need to figure out a way to keep yourself from trading unless you see one, and you need a way to make yourself take a loss as soon as your high prob bet becomes 50/50 or less. Advice would be to step back , hang on to your cash , and get some more knowledge under your belt, trade simulation while you are aquiring that , and teach your self the skills needed for taking losses, this last step is maybe the hardest and most important, you've already found out it's easy to make money,what you need to learn is how to not give it back, in other words to give it back in small pieces . These losses are your monthly bills and you want to keep them low, best way is minimize the trades you take by running them thru a filter, that will require learning to sit on hands, and secondly setting a stop that you will honor, that will require discipline, think of your losses as saving money,learn to like them, be a pro at taking losses
Ignore the old geezers here and Do it Kid. Their just bitter because they haven't made any real money trading. You'r special, and you've already proved that. Dump college, and trade 24/7. You'll be rolling in money in a matter days. Oh and hookers and blow.