Looking for mentor/chat

Discussion in 'Educational Resources' started by bigbrent701, Jul 16, 2006.

  1. It was only a matter of time.

    Bigbrent, hopefully you realize the reason I did not respond to your PM's, because I knew this is what you wanted, and I am not capable of giving my time to help others because I'm still trying to figure out trading myself. I've been doing this for a year now and I still feel like every day is a new challenge, a new adventure. I can not give my time to help every person that PM's me asking to swap ideas, in your case I knew you wanted me to mentor you.

    You will have to learn the hard way, and if you are not willing to put in the effort you will fail. Join a prop firm, put up 2k and see what you can do, that is all the advice I have to offer.

    Who You Know does not apply in trading. It is... do you know yourself?

    Go to a remote prop firm, I have my list, http://www.utropix.com/jmowery/PropFirms.html, and sign up with one of them.

    If you want to talk about prop firms, I can help you possibly, but I don't have time to do the chat thing and talk all day. I used to participate in a chat room, but I haven't been there for almost 2 months it seems, there just isn't any time for anyone who is a serious trader to teach others unless they are rich and don't need to trade on their own.

    Sorry, but, mentors are few and far between, and there is no mentor out there who will teach you without them benefiting, either directly or indirectly somehow.

    I talk to ES once in a great while, but even he will tell you that this only happens maybe once every week if even that.


    When you said you blew your money on a FEW bad plays, that told me you were money hungry, you wanted to go big and try to take huge profits in the shortest amount of time, and sadly, trading does not work that way.

    I started at 100 shares and worked my way up. You should be happy that you didn't get started in the Futures markets, because that could have been even more painful.

    Here is some more advice I will give you and all I have left to give:

    1. Read Mark Douglas - Trading in the Zone

    2. Trade 100 shares of any stock, one that represents the style of trading you'd like to take on, and trade it, and then once in awhile spread out to a few different stocks. Expose yourself to several methods of trading.

    3. Preserve your money. When I first started, I made 4k last me for close to 6 months, in that 6 months I learned so much on an extremely low amount of money to work with and that tought me hard to preserve my money and protect it and was probably my most valuable lesson beyond reading Mark Douglas' book.

    4. Work hard. Something about you is telling me you are not willing to put in the effort to do this on your own like the other successful traders have. That is okay, 90% or more fail at this. You have to learn to let your ego go and accept the fact that you are most likely not going to make it. But you are smart because you are in college and can finish off college with your degree and move on to something better.

    5. Know when to give up. If you work at this for several years, and are struggling to make a living, and know you won't make it in the long run, or think it was just luck or something, be sure to take another job, because the markets will always be here. If 1 year from now I had to give up trading, I'd accept it and go work at another job until I could save up funds and work out a new system of trading, and only when I was testing it for at least 6 months to a year and knew it was rock solid, and had a backup just incase, maybe I'd give it another shot.


    Trading is not easy, and for many it probably is a job where you are struggling to make payments and for some others, might be on the brink of failure and are struggling.

    The successful traders make the big bucks, but if your lured into this career because of the $$$$$$$, you better realize you will pay the ultimate price to learn how to do it and it will not be easy, and I myself sometimes get a little bit stressed when things do not go my way, but I am fortunate to have backup plans if things go wrong. Do you?
     
    #21     Jul 17, 2006

  2. I found this site after I alreadly studied for the 7. You're right a lot of the info. becomes irrelevant the more you actually trade.

    But taking the test provided a nice starting point in a lot of areas.
     
    #22     Jul 17, 2006
  3. segv

    segv

    You do not need a background in mathematics to be a good programmer, but it does help in many situations. Take a battery of CS and programming classes from a community college. The quality will be just as good, the prereqs are easy to meet, and you might even find some U of M professors teaching there as well.

    -segv
     
    #23     Jul 17, 2006
  4. James (I think thats your name atleast) I was not looking for a mentor from you. The reason i PMed you was because i felt like i was reading posts that I would have made a year ago when i was quite active in the market. I have been out of the market since October and not active since last August. I realize you are just starting out yourself and i wish you the best of luck. You can expect to see a lot of me on ET as I am following the markets again.

    You may not believe its who you know but if you look at the posts a lot of people seem to agree that the key to getting IN to this business beyond the prop side is from knowing someone.

    As for going prop its just not a possibility for me. My summer job, which i work full time and make a very decent hourly rate, all my money will go to basically for paying for the next year until next summer. I am a junior at UMD and I am paying for my remaining 2 years at Maryland. At this point asking me to put down 2k again is just out of the question. More than likely I am 2 years out from being able to trade again, barring a major score in a Multi table poker tourney.

    I just want to get back into the game, but since i do not have a stake I am going to do the other things that will help me once i do have the stake.

    BE ON THE LOOK FOR MY JOURNAL that i will be starting within the next few days.
     
    #24     Jul 17, 2006
  5. What exactly do you want to do then? Do you want to be a fund manager, or work for a large bank or something?

    Good luck regardless, I just don't have the time to chat and rarely have my chat program running.

    BTW, you messaged me and said I thought of myself as a "hotshot".

    Truth be told, I'd never consider myself a hotshot and there are probably hundreds of people that are better than me.

    I might be an optimistic person generally, but I'm not crazy enough to say I will be making millions of dollars doing this as tomorrow, my strategy may never work again for some strange reason, just as any trader here, for some reason or another, their strategy just might not function ever again. Anything is possible.

    Good luck with everything though. Again sorry, I just don't have the time to communicate, and when I do, it is usually very brief.
     
    #25     Jul 17, 2006
  6. Surdo

    Surdo

    JMowery:

    I think you are a hotshot for a 19 year old!
    Are you planning on college at some point?
    I would give you a job when you graduate.


    el surdo
     
    #26     Jul 17, 2006
  7. segv

    segv

    As your temporary mentor (for the duration of this post), I am going to give you some advice. I am guessing from your profile and writing style that you are young, possibly still in college. If that is the case, start loading up on the math, economics, computer science, and psychology. If not, consider going back to college.

    There is an excellent Masters of Science program at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Stuart School of Business. (see: http://www.stuart.iit.edu/programs_ms/financial_mkts/). I recommend that you investigate it, and other similar programs around the country. Armed with such an academic background, you might be able to compete for an entry level position at a hedge fund or investment bank. There you could begin to learn the industry from the inside, gain practical experience, earn a nice salary, and develop relationships with people in the industry.

    If you try to trade now, at your level of education, experience, and capitalization, you are very likely to fail. Your opponents are highly educated, capitalized, and experienced. On the other hand, if you invest the same dollars and effort into developing the academic background, credentials, and experience you are far more likely to succeed. There are not many Richard Dennis stories in the world; luck plays a major role in such outcomes.

    -segv
     
    #27     Jul 17, 2006
  8. Well i dont really know what the title is but, but basically i ideally i would trade using the firms capital. First person that comes to mind is someone like Bill Lipshutz from Schwagers New Market Wizards he traded for Soloman brothers before starting his own fund.

    I was very irritated when you did not respond to my PMs because i was eager to talk to someone and i saw you were posting. That was probably said out of anger (people please do not act like you have never gotten angry and say something along the lines of "you have to watch your anger in this profession" I realize that.

    James given your age and the wiring of your brain i feel you have a natural edge against someone older say that is in their 30's or 40's simply because you can learn at a faster rate. Second I see that you understand the basics behind how to suceeed. Third and probably the most intriquing is your programming skills. Personally i feel that if i had programming skills and the ability to code my system script then Ide be able to trade better. One of my biggest problems with my entry and notice my emphasis on entry and not "system" as a whole because i truly believe entry is only a small part of a system but part of my entry problem was I would often get signals a day late because of the software i was using or not at all because of my lack of ability to describe to the computer what i was looking for.
     
    #28     Jul 17, 2006
  9. humble1

    humble1


    Eventhough you work all day, you can still swing trade and learn how to use the orders and stops. If you can't make money swing trading with end of day data, there is no need to try daytrading yet.

    Those are all good, but you need to learn how to read charts. So you will need to read Edwards and Magee, Pring, or Murphy. Any or all of those. At the Ensignwebsite you can down load historical tickdata and practice short term trading when ever you have time. There is also good support with the Echat program.
     
    #29     Jul 17, 2006
  10. I think you have a good chance of finding a discretionary trader
    to help you, however i dont think you will find many system traders disclosing their systems to a stranger.

    I fall in to the later, and see no reason to disclose my best
    systems to anyone for nothing.

    The risk doesnt match the reward
     
    #30     Jul 17, 2006