Hey Nkhoi when i saw whos thread was the "template" and it was mine I was tickled to death. Threading through the people that are out to rob you and those that actually want to help you can be a job in itself, i may continue more on that thread since it may serve to be useful to others.
My mentor has a very good system of charging me fees based on the trades I made daily, and sometimes giving me incentive as well when the trades made are profitable ones. She never give up teaching me how to trade well and how to improve next trades, as long as I am willing to learn from her. Everyone can become her student providing real money is available and used for practicing trades daily. Basically she should be the best mentor I could imagine. Her name is Ms Markets. For more information about her trading and mentoring style/ details, you may send PMs.
I think there are lots of good ideas here at EliteTrader.com. Searching and reading EliteTrader.com for about 6 months might help a trader significantly.
Eagle my question to you is THEN WHAT, I personally have already taken those steps you have mentioned. This is a point I would like to make that is not often brought up, people suggest that you paper trade and sure that can help but what is important is that once you start your real trading you want to be using the same style, if you were using EOD data for swing trading then do that once you have the funds. The conflict comes into play when you want to day trade but you dont have the time in your current schedule because of other commitments such as a job or school during the day. Personally i would like to learn to day trade the ES or a basket of stocks but i dont have the time during the day to do this now so i read instead. Bottom line when it comes to paper trading is that you want it to be as accurate of real trading conditions as possible. I honestly believe that if you commit the time to learn to trade your timeframe of interest in time your chances will become better. There is too much variation in the short run to draw any conclusions, if you want to day trade I personally believe you need at a absolute bare minimum of 3 months of watching the market open to close to be able to draw ANY sound conclusions and many would argue you need as much 5 years, my estimate is with mentoring you should allow yourself 12-18 months, which requires bankroll management and reserve capital. With so many barriers to entry if you dont have someone to teach you and adequate funding those alone can stack the odds so far against you that you never have a chance just given standard statistical models.
Lance, You should read the rules and regulations here at ET. You CANNOT advertise w/o paying for the privaledge.
If you are looking for a mentor tray this guy www.tradingpriceactiononfutures.com I have had some great help from him.
I worked at Oracle back in the late 90's during the .com boom. I probably lost $30,000+ in stupid trades and excitement from former stock traders and wannabes, yelling out from our cubicles, BS Trade tips we had from "friends", LOL. That was my first, expensive lesson in stock investing. It taught me not to be an idiot and actually LEARN on my own how to do it. I then read, "The little blue book that beats the market" in 2005. I took the portfolio i set up according to the author's magic formula and it felt like a good strategy. I realized i was too impatient to buy and hold, so I found a couple of the value stocks were volatile.. I then went on a tear and turned $500 into $20k on a stock PTSC. It started falling back down, and I got out of stocks with $15k, and got caught up investing in RE properties. I blew that up to about $2Mill, and almost went belly up bankrupt in 2008 recession, when many tenants were laid off and couldnt pay rent.. ..yet somehow I crawled out of that mess with my wife and kids, alive... Investing of any kind is great, but you need to read alot and practice, and it will teach you to be humble, and practice risk and wealth management. The key is to read reputable books/courses, and learn to decipher between BS Gurus and the truth AND then doing it yourself, and learning from your mistakes. Once the economy got better in recent years, I became VERY gunshy about any kind of investing... Naturally, I am much more cautious now. But, I dabbled recently with day trading and earned a modest 20% in a few weeks of swing trading. I opted to take David Green's Become A Day Trader course on Investopedia last weekend. I found it to be very good, but as my humble years of wisdom taught me via failures, is that he too is a guru, just like those RE investment guys years ago and creeping up again now on TV, teaching you BS RE Investment courses on how to etc etc. BUT, David G's course DOES seem more legit to me than many of the other BS stock classes on Udemy, etc. My suspicion is, that he cultuvates a new class of traders, and then brings them into his prop shop? I could be wrong, but my instinct tells me that. )Yes, learn to trust your instincts too, lol). Sorry for the long rant, and hope my blurb gives some help to any young guys/beginners wanting to conquer the known world. Sift thru all the BS out there, read books classes and go out and do it. LEARN from your mistakes, get your ass back up off the boxing ring floor and HAMMER the opponent in the nose - while guarding yourself. If you stay at it long enough, you will learn how to become a good fighter, and hopefully one day, even a contender! No matter WHAT kind of investing/business you do..