I accept that trading is hard and 98 or 99 or 99.5% of those that give it a serious try do not make the cut. I also accept that on average it may take years too be consistently profitable. But could the imbeciles on here who pontificate that it wll take you three years, four months and eleven days to get there please stop making fools of themselves. It is one thing to talk about how heavily the deck is stacked against the new trader who has nowhere to turn for professional advice. It is also fine to give them information that informs them of how different it is to shoot and break the stem of a wine glass at 50 paces than to try and do that when the wine glass is firing back. But to sermonize how long it will take a given novice you know nothing about to break the curve is just plain fucking stupid. Anyone who has any sense of statistics -- not to mention that there are some people who are so outside the box as to natural ability to do a specific task not only very well but to learn it quickly -- instantly realizes that predicting where he'll be on June 23, 2010 at 9:42 AM is inane. No one will master it in weeks but to pretend that different traders will progress along the curve (or not progress at all) at about the same rate is to be from a different planet or simply, as I said earlier, to be an imbecile. Please stop.
Thank you. This is the same point I made on another thread entitled, "Trading is hard, very hard, damn hard." For someone to say that it will (read "must") take you 5 years to figure out how to trade is ridiculous.
This is all true. But going in thinking you're going to be the guy that puts it all together quickly is even more ridiculous. As with any business you must be prepared for things not going as well as planned. For the record, it took me about a year of trading away from my old job before I found a consistently profitable edge that I could say paid the bills. But first I wasted a bunch of time with MACD, EMA, MA, Fib retrace, Bollinger Bands, cup and handles, double tops, head and shoulders, candlestick patterns and every other canned indicator that comes in a charting package. I considered myself a decent swing trader when I had a normal job. Old Trader's suggestion is an excellent one since you already have a system to deploy.
In this day and age, charging $100 for commission each way is a ripoff. It is higher than the deep-discount broker rate IN 1994 (when I started)! Today I pay $3.50 on equity trades regardless of size using RealTick. Other online brokers charge something like from $4 to $10 a trade. Seems like you work in a Saks Fifth Avenue kind of brokerage firm. But just because you work at Saks doesn't mean you can only shop at Saks. Perhaps switch to a more reasonable brokerage firm for your own trading.
The problem with that kind of approach: you may be thinking of scalping 10 cents on a 4000 shares to make $400. And you one day might be able to do it 5 to 6 times and do really well. Then you get in another trade... that looks just like another wonderful scalping opportunity... but it actually is a beginning of an accelerated move. The market spikes. While you are looking for a 10 cent profit, the market turns 50 cents or more against you in no time. But with heavy shares, you can't get out fast enough. As they say: Eat like a bird, shit like an elephant. Everyone needs to find what works for him/her. Everybody is different. You mentioned that you did well in swing trading with real money. My question is why not exploit that edge? My advice to you, having switched to day-trading exclusively for 5-6 years: day-trading is very different from swing trading. Primarily in the opening chaos and the time-of-day factor.
Yes ... common sense, the law of gravity and the sun rising in the East are still all the real deal. Yet Shreddog, I think even a cursory rereading of my post should inform you that I am decidedly not suggesting that anyone, no matter how smart they think they are or how well educated they may appear to be, underestimate the forces of nature that we lump under the heading of markets. There is a reason that competent traders in time can count on earning six figures, good traders seven figures and truly heavy hitters eight figures. I saw Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Duke Snyder interviewed by Warner Wolf the only time the three of them ever appeared on TV together. Mays commented that all of them were paid $100,000 + a year at a point in their careers. Synder laughed and said he could speak for himself and Mickey but that in 1955 or '56 he asked for a $10,000 raise to $55,000 from $45,000. He had hit 40+ home runs, over 100 RBI's and was always more than a solid (A-) center fielder. They told him they were giving him $5,000 more not $10,000 because he didn't steal enough bases. Even on an inflation adjusted basis $55,000 per might be great money but far from a fortune. The reality is it is never easy to take home big money. Frankly, if a guy doesn't get that pretty quick nothing any of us are going to say can help him. I'm not trying to be cynical but if a girl doesn't realize by the time she is 18 or 19 that just because a guy wants to fuck her it doesn't mean he likes her ... well then she is at best slow and at worst a full blown mental defective. If by 18 or 19 a guy or a girl still believes that real money, folding money not small change, is easy to make then they are also either slow of mentally defective. Sure, everyone underestimates how tough it is to make the grade ... and I mean EVERYONE; but let us not bother trying to help those who think there is free money to be picked off a tree on Wall or LaSalle Streets. Anyone who believes that is beyond help. NO ONE CAN HELP THE TRULY STUPID AND THAT IS A FACT. For the record I am still a novice and have a long way to go before I hit competent.
I would not recommend trading a foreign market for a beginner. The time differential may be attractive and the OP can keep his/her current job while trading a market full-time. But these foreign markets are driven by their own local factors as well as the global markets. Sometimes the Hang Seng leads the S&P, sometimes it lacks. And does one know that HSI stops for 2 hours in the middle of their trading day? - because it is lunch time over there. And at times when the US markets go bullish, Hang Seng opens up 300 to 400 points from the get up. It is really not easy to trade, especially if you are not there.
I am curious as to what traders experiences have been like in these markets. Of course I'll do some research before I ever trade any of them but if adadadog and/or others can comment about liquidity, range, tick size, commissions etc. I would appreciate it.
+1 take advice from this forum for what it is... advice from anonymous strangers who are unsuccessful in this business. yes, trading successfully is hard but that doesn't mean it'll be as hard for you. everyone has different backgrounds, skill sets, and perspectives so please expect different results. i think most people make trading seem harder than it really is so that they don't feel so bad having spent the "required 5+ years of screen time and $xx,xxx" paying their dues (why people think the market requires dues beats me). and yes, i have been successfully trading on full auto for years now and it took less than four months to go live. but then again, our backgrounds vary and so will our results. if you think you can do it, then by all means try. how else will you know?
for day trading this is far too large. Tells me you are overtrading: --------------------------------------------------- At one point I did have a 30+% drawdown. Having adequate capital to trade with is essential.