I hope it's not quite that bad. I am not prepared to get my teeth kicked in for the next couple of years, and I hope to keep the crying and screaming to a minimum. Yet, I do NOT believe this precludes me from one day being a successful trader.
I read both of the starts you have tried to make here. ET, so far, does not have an accomodation for people starting out. trading can be done in a lot of ways and it is anything but a career option in the normal sense of having a career. Career search on ET is not gong to be helpful. The dummy theme of beginning doesn't turn out to be functional iether. What is the big hitch in getting started in trading? It is not hard to fathom if you can develop a perspective. Thet is the rub, no one is commenting about trading who has a perspctive. There are very good reasons and they turn out to be sort of self evident. if it is possible to look. Glance at the process of getting into trading and being sccessful. Particularly look backwards from a pinnacle or such. Wizards are exceptions, the financial industry top dogs are sales people whose teams market ferfomance that is abysmal from an entrepreneurial point of view. What shinning examples are left? contest winners, TV hosts, vendors of trading stuff? The first topical reference I like is "traders you have never heard of". Let me reel off four of these cases for you. A, B, C, and D. Keep these cogent and detailed descriptions in mind for a while..... just imagine that I have done it and I'll save the space. Particularly note how good their programmers were and that their programmers could trade too. we see this pinnacle level. Lets hike down the trail to where you are looking up. They got to the pinnacle by havig an approach that is excellent for making money. they make money hand over fist and it wirks all the time for them. theyapproached the pinnacle through a common process of working to very well understand how to take money out o the markets. They have a method and they apply it narrowly to one or maybe two markets. So when did they pick the application? and when did they pick the method? They all have one thing in common. They never worked for anyone else and they had no money to speak of when they started. Now we can look at the general situation. the situation in which these guys operate. Here is how they talk about it. Everyone wants then to come and "fix" what they are doing. They do not go and "fix". They know it cannot be "fixed" Everyone wants them to take their money and run with it. They do not take many other people's money. They do take some and they pay out profits regularly. We have moved down several plateaux from the top and we see tha BIG money is not making money and the Wizards are exceptions, media and vnedors make money through sales and down on a certain plateau their are some individuals who really rake it in and keep their size just right to continue. On the plateaux below there are people who need fixing (and want to PAY MONEY to get the fix)and people with money who do not know where to put it even though they DO KNOW there is money to be made. Below this there are marginal performers amd some good performers who use commonly known methods that work only so well, they tell us. The good performers do grinds of routines that creme. Creming mechanically is there t do at various ceilings. Below them are the marginal performers. They have equity curves that contiue on the same slope and often they end with blow outs. These people are performing because they like to do it and they make ends meet as long as they stay as traders. Look for tired posts in ET. Lets slip down another level of talis to the revolving door plateau. This is a wide plateau... about 2 to 3 years wide. There are two ways off: marginal above and down the slippery slope to the financial industry exit( old cars) and entrance area (small cars) (where you are standing). Were a person parks here is random since new spaces are opening up all the time. This plateau is a croed one and hovels are common. Lots of screaming and bashing and busted computers and unpaid bills and empty pizza boxes and chop sticks and unrepaired furniture. Books all over the place and CD's too. Every street has a name of an edge it looks like. There are vendor malls everywhere they can be wedged in. TV station and radio station antennas abound and there are cable laden telephone polls and advertising boards on every corner. All streets are narrow and there is no city planning at all. It is a view that all beginners get to see. And what they get to hear if they ring a door bell is what you have already heard. ET is head quartered here as well. So you have some needs and you want to know some stuff. Read on. From the start, look for how to become "a trader you have never heard of". You need to make a lot of money and stay way the heck away from the first plateau. So start on that path and skip marginal approaches. What are they doing in those shops? The are using their capability (computers included) to make the markets work for them. What is the staff configuration? We do not care because it started out with one guy who made money hand over fist and needed some support. They know the markets!!!!!! They know how to relate to markets!!!!!! You need to know what the approach is and how it works. That is not gong to happen by it being given to you. What you will be given by any of these guys is their time and their programmer to help you if you have something to give them. So you do not; so you can't. So you hav to learn ow markets work just like they did!!!!!!!!!!! What can you do? You can follow in their footsteps. They have left a trail and it is a terrific one. Not in books, but in the usual places. If you start from the vantage point of the People who get the job done you can do it too. I you look for shortcuts, you get to be on the marginal plateau and leave some day. Do not pay tuition to the markets as a learning strategy. You have nothing to gain by trading anything except a method that takes money out of the markets hand over fist. So what you first see on ET as you enter and ask straight and comrehensive questions is answers from people who are on the crowded beginner plateau and some of them are still going across the 2 to 3 years width to, maybe get to the other side and go up to the marginal plateau (this is a bittr place for most) you may have heard from a person or so who is there and they are telling you yu have to pay dues and tution and other crap. The place to look for more marginal stuff is the P and L thread to pick up names of anyone who is not using some routin from beginner and marginal land (it will show as a series of posts where the take is ever increasing at a rate determined by doubling periodically). the exception is posters who periodically pull profits on a regular basis (monthly and preferrably, weekly). To find great traders you have never heard of look for people who came and went AND their reasons why. Here is an example: AMT and another girlpower. Reason for AMT is that his new parnet said he had to. Another reason is some guys get sick of taking crap. you will notice that all of these people know how the marketswork and thier methods point this out clearly. you can see how an aircraft mechanic did not go to the beginner plateau; he did not stop at marginal; he went to the plateau the is not BIG money and is not VENDOR and is not SALES; he went to "terrific" plateau where guys really make money hand over fist. These guys only do contests briefly, if at all. Contest winners who go to VENDOR you can skip as well. Most contests prohibit quality trading simply by their rule restrictions. So work arund ET and fid the gems and gold. There you will find html's to references. References will lead you to the stories of people you have never heard of kinds of indiviual traders and their teams. You can best open their doors with the email addresses of their programmers (who are busy guys, too). Another path is to be at the right place at the right time. Make yourself write qestions about how the market works. You wirte them in steno pads...your mind reads them conscously and unconsciously... Your unconscious is going to help you more and more. About the fifth time you write out the answer to a question you will be getting ready to write down a new question. Knowing how the market works is the common attribute of people who are on the right plateau. This thread could be a good one. So far there are no good beginner threads in ET for the reasons I have explained above. Beginner threads are commonly trash heavy.