Read Bill O'Neill's book: How to make money in the stock market... Trade only stocks.... Open account with somebody like Fidelity....they have great educational tools, screening systems etc etc....plus some nice little 1 hour free seminars on active trading....technicals etc etc Be rigid in your discipline.... Be smart in your money management.... I am commercial broker....you will love trading....no lawyers, no inspections, no lenders, no contracts, no addendums LOL Good luck SteveD
No point in paper trading. Just trade small lots then you will also learn where to route your order and how things fill. Can't expect to learn without losing money. And you can study yourself to see how you handle the losses since the better you get the bigger they will get also. Paper trading takes out all emotion and the fills are dumb
Ok, so you made more than you can imagine. Now imagine, losing more than you can imagine. Thats what will probably happen if you start trading. This game is about 1000000x more competitive than flipping homes.
1. Get accustomed with different trading styles. Read about them and figure out what fits your personality best. There are long term styles and there are very very short term styles. The question here is not if you personally prefer to "think" in longer or shorter time frames but rather: How good/bad are you at cutting losers and getting rid of them. If you're extremely good and unemotional about accepting a loss and quickly trading in the direction of the market then shorter time frames might suit you well. Other wise you could look into an "asset allocation" based investing/trading style, although these generally require significantly higher amounts of capital and a very long time frame. 2. Become realistic. I see many posts and threads on the board asking "Is it possible to make 10% a day/week/month". Answer: Yes, anything is "possible". Theoretically, you could make 10% a day in Las Vegas playing roulette breaking every bank. The question is what % is realistic for you, your trading style and your mental ability to accept a temporary loss of trading capital. I say again what I wrote here very often: If you can make 30% annually year in year out regardless of market conditions with low volatility and a drawdown < 15/20% then you belong to the top 2% of all traders worldwide. In other words: Don't expect to make a killing, especially not so in the beginning. Have realistic expectations and have a solid plan on how to reach them and have a plan B ready if things go wrong. That also means defining strict criteria when things go wrong (e.g. weekly/monthly max. loss limit etc.) 3. Treat it like a business. If you have treated your real estate venture professionally then do the same with trading. It's a full time venture and 24 hours in a day is not enough to learn everything out there. I believe you can never "figure" out trading 100%. You can never lean back and say "Ok that's it I can let this ship sail for the next couple years without adjusting course". Systems, strategies, etc. need constant refinement, just like any business. You eventually have to focus on a strategy or a limited set of strategies and stick with them and constantly evolve them.
d00d, Trying to beat the market all comes down to this: 1) It's a 50/50 crap shoot: the price will either go up or it will go down. A better game would be to play either the red or the black on the roulette wheel. Over time it really doesn't matter. 2) Somewhere along the way Dr. Greenspan told a Senate committee: .... "When you are dealing with stock the possibilities of which are either, it's going to be valued at zero, or some huge number - you get a premium in that stock price which is exactly the same sort of price evaluation process that goes on in the lottery: following principles known to lottery managers for centuries." 3) .... "The chimp, known as Raven to his managers at the Internet Stock Review, threw 10 darts at a dart board with the names of 133 internet companies to select the 'MonkeyDex' - a portfolio showing 50 per cent growth on a year-to-date basis, outstripping the Munder Net fund, with 32 per cent growth." Stay away from people who purport to give 'expert' stock trading advise. They NEVER ever come close to the results of an untrained chimpanzee! 4) The only winner out there is the 'house': your local casino and your broker. 5) d00d, save yourself a lot of time and effort: invest in an INDEX fund; otherwise you'll be living in a tent someplace wishing you were back selling 'fix er uppers'! You've made your $. NOW go spend your remaing time with your loved ones. I hope this helps. Tom
wow. I appreciate all these well thought out replies. It is very valuable to me. I will strongly rethink my plans to trade on my own.
Wow... can you say 'I tried to trade and lost my shirt?' I'm sure the OP can provide examples of people that tried real estate and lost their shirts as well.
Not necessarily. Thats pretty good advice. There is no hard data out there, but if I had to bet... 90% of people make money on their real estate if they hold it long enough. 99% of people fail at actively trading if they trade long enough. There's a big difference. Im profitable, and pretty much know for a fact not a single one of my friends has the combination of skills required to be successful in the long term in trading.