Ok, let me address and debunk your points one by one. I am good at giving lectures and it appears you need one much like Tom Cruise got when he buzzed the tower too many times in Top Gun. You have to be stopped now before you lose all your cash. Lets start... "I'm 24 and I want to be a millionaire by the time I'm 30 and over 10 million by the time I'm 40." You are a fool if you believe that you can accomplish this with day and swing trading alone. While there are many rich people who are traders, they did not do it with $23000 and a Scottrade Account. Look at all the people who are successful. Go over their biographies. If you really want to be in the investment and trading business then go to school and get yourself a business degree. If you dont want to go to school then go to Morgan Stanley and be an investment advisor. "At this point in my life, I would consider myself a "loser" for a lack of a better word. I still live with my parents (lame excuse #1:" Most people in this world and on this earth are broke. NYC doesnt just have Donald Trump, but there are also all those housing projects in the Bronx and Harlem filled with the poor. No one ever talks about those neighborhoods however, its all about Trump Tower and Goldman Sachs. Stay with your parents for as long as you can unless you receive an offer you cant refuse. Dont pay rent if you dont have to. "I have no car" No need for one. Its a depreciating asset. "I have no girlfriend" That will only make you poorer. "My first goal is to turn from a loser to a winner." Open up a ROTH IRA right now and go to school. Get yourself a business degree. "In order to do this my first target goal is to have at LEAST 200,000 in my account by the end of 2008." An 8695% in less then 2 years? I bet if you were able to accomplish that then you would probably get an offer from the biggest hedge funds in town. It is possible although improbable. You may ask yourself, how in the hell I'm going to make that kind of cash in that short of a time period." Yes I would like to know. "One word my friends: LEVERAGE." No no my friend. That might land you in more trouble then you bargained for. You might end up oweing more then you have. "As soon as I increase my 23,000 account to 30,000, I'm going to get a loan for 30,000. Since I have good credit, I can get a loan for less than 8%. Put that 30,000 with my other 30,000 and now I have 60,000 in my account. With 2:1 leverage that's 120,000. If have enough experience to scalp by then, I might decide to use the 4:1 leverage. By that time, I obviously need to find a better platform than Scottrade, one that has low transaction costs for high volume traders. " Please dont do this. Please dont. Do us a favor and post your strategies in detail on here before you go through with them. This sounds like a recipe for disaster. First, lets place $4000 of that cash into a ROTH IRA. Next, go to the library and read up as much as you can. Educate and learn. Next, attempt to mock trade without cash and use your strategies. See if you make money. Discuss your strategies on here and see what other people have to say. Purchase the following book "Stock Traders Almanac" for $35 from Amazon. Read through the entire book and feel out what are the historical trends. There are two general periods in the market. May-October, Nov-April. Let knowledge be your guide. Next lets look at some stock calculators off of the websites. http://www.investor.fnf.com/calcula...ic_Day=10&historic_Year=2001&Submit=Calculate So buying Fidelity stock 5 years ago with 23000 would yield $96000 today. 400% return. There is nothing wrong with buying and holding the right stocks and having a job my friend. With your strategy, it will take just a few bad trades to completely wipe you out...Please consider my words of wisdom...
I think that a beginning trader who risks 5% of his account equity on a single trade is asking for trouble.
Your wasting all your time on this thread. You should already be up $50 Million on your IB Sim account, you self proclaimed LOSER.
I would tend to agree, but people laugh when I suggest they trade just 1 share of a $25 naz stock when they are beginning... Of course you would never be profitable trading one share at a time, but you would (IMHO) learn a lot about your emotions and order types and entry mechanics, etc. If each and every position is traded, logged and analyzed with no emotional attachment, then possibly a winning system could be developed. And without account wipeouts. When I try a new method, I trade it very small, but with real money. Then I slowly increase size. This kind of thing works well for me, but everybody is different. Good trading.
You and I agree in principle. However, just to be clear, by % risk, I refer to the dollar value of the protective stop in relation to the dollar value of the account equity.
<i>"Funny how ITrade hasen't responded to anyones comments?"</i> Did anyone take <b>IT's</b> post seriously? Sure looked like a deliberate hook-line-sinker toss to bored ET'ers from here :>)