There's a thing with noobs and shorting on ET, my personal thoughts on the matter, it's an ego thing. Noobs are basically clueless and they do stupid things without doing research, we've all been there so not ruling myself out. But a little tip, shorting is a mugs game. If you know statistics, only a minority of traders are profitable and that's trading long. For short traders it's even harder again. I do think penny stocks are usually more profitable to short than big and mid caps, but it's a difficult end of the spectrum to trade penny stocks, big swings, unpredictable, erratic, not supported by fund managers. One needs to be super alert and focused which is not easy at the best of times, as well as being experienced as a trader.
What would most people prefer to make: 1) 7 per cent net return with 5 per cent capital at risk of loss 2) 13 per cent pa with 15 per cent at risk?
Congratulations, you are 1 step closer to be a real trader , no pain no gain,,,,,, I'm telling you this for my real life experience too,,,, it hurts but it will make you a better trader for sure if you want to persist ,,,,,, money management is your only lifesaver at least will keep you more time in this business , this is not a sprint is a marathon,,,,,it took me 8 years to realized this...!!
Please no more PMs begging for capital claiming you can trade for me and take a cut...I’m not interested thanks.
I was just thinking about your post. How much is your (under) performance YTD?. I.e how much have you lost so far % wise?
I’m down ~20% since I started day trading June 1st. Yea that’s embarrassing as hell and the reason I stopped myself...was doing great month after month consistently growing my account balance then BOOM F’d in the A. I’m currently not trading at all and spending all of my spare time trying to educate myself and when I feel ready I will work back in slowly.
Do you know what very long term US equities returns are (from the 1920s to date)? Around 7 per cent p.a. from memory. That does not mean that you will recover your loss in less than 3 ys if you buy and hold a cheap SP500 ETF. But you are more likely than not to perform in line with market for next 30 ys. Your alpha will come from your day job doing something else. You will likely live a bit longer too if you save yourself from the stress associated with daytrading as well. Thats the kind of advice you will unlikely read on this forum.