Sorry hughb, I've been on vacation for a few weeks. I usually check the forums at lunch, or after the market closes. I found it a great place to keep up with current events and news that affect traders. This is where I first heard of the $25K margin requirement back when it happened, weeks before the brokers notified us. This is also where I picked up on the CBOT, CME merger when it was still just a rumor. I find it great for tech support questions, and trading tips as well {if you learn to scan through the nonsense}. There is a lot of good info here. Believe it or not, I just started looking through the Jack Hershey threads. I'm lazy sometimes. If I see there is already 30-40 pages, I put it off until I have time. Next thing I know, there's 200 pages and I'm way behind. I started day trading in late 1998. I remember how happy I was when I found this site. There was great info here for the new trader, and you knew you weren't alone in the battle. Everyone seemed to be making money back then in tech stocks. {Except me}. All you had to do was buy. I remember all the late night infomercials selling day trading instruction. Young traders were buying $100k sports cars after a good day. Many used to get on here and brag. Then the bubble burst and they all disappeared. It worked out for me though because I learned to short. AAAinthebeltway is correct. I remember Barron selling video cards etc. Back then, one of the only games in town was Realtick and Terranova. It was $14.95 a trade. {I believe each way}. You were out $30.00 before counting the spread. It was tough learning. Everyone used to complain about the market makers, how they screwed them, knew where there their stop orders were etc. It was funny. It's unbelievable how the technology and pricing has changed in 10 years. My original Emachine 200 mgz. computer is still under the desk. It still works, I powered it up the other day just to check. It's a nice souvenir, and reminder of where the journey all started.
Reviving this thread just to say hello to Baron and some of the other early members. 10/7/1999 was my register date. Hope all is well guys...
I must imagine every major tidal wave (market crash) clears out a significant majority of traders...to basically never hear from them again ; The late 90's dot com market crash, and the 2008 housing market bubble. Even without those major tidal waves...people still drop like flies in this game. It's rare for people to survive long in this game...the people who do survive, I must imagine their % returns are just very conservative, or more or less...just in line with the major market indexes. I would like to see, or know, who are the rare people out there who are able to fly high for very prolonged periods -- and basically never sustain a substantial hit,