Thanks for your comment. I promise I'll read "Trading in the Zone". I'm discovering a new world and it isn't easy but I will do my best to succeed in the long term because I like trading/investing. Each advice is highly appreciated. Thanks to everyone who supports me -beginnings are not easy. To make matters worse, I'm not an english native speaker so it's even more difficult for me to learn (I don't like translations). That's why I think your advice is very important: I'll read, highlight and write in my OWN words what I read. That's a good way to learn -slowly but successful-.
It's weird, working in another industry, there were some simple things in my field I would have liked to have learned early on that I didn't. Ironically, many of these things could be taught by myself in a hour or so if someone had actually trained me. So I started to wonder, is there anything pertaining to the trading field that I've learned in 5 years or so? A. Books are a very cheap investment. Its not unrealistic to spend $2000-3000 on a variety of books on systems trading, options, global macro, bonds, investment sector specific books, etc. B. Risk is extremely important. You need to learn how to measure and monitor how it comes up in the Market in different situations. C. Timing is also critical, but not as important as Risk. D. Having sufficient capital to trade risk capital is key. Its not as important as A, B or C however because you won't make money with out A or B. I can send you a complete list of required and then suggested books, if you want it, email me, I don't have time to do a complete and thorough evaluation of all the trading related books I've read. I figure it can be reduced to maybe 10 req'd books, and then specific categories for certain areas later on. Finally, I think it's more important to educate yourself in all the varieties of equity trading and their associated risk then running just a model portfolio. Its a decent exercise, but spending time learning a programming language or a trading technique is more valuable due to the time req'd to continuously update all the holdings. Because its important to keep the learning rate extremely high at the beginning, having your intellectual efforts fixated on a model portfolio might not be the best use of your time.
I just took a picture of a bunch of trading related books I keep around. There are a bunch of technical oriented books in there, some about bond trading and options, and towards the end its trading psychology, or books about traders - stock market superstars, market wizards, etc...
I don't even see motivation in your post. My advice to you is: don't even bother with trading, it's not for you. The first thing needed in trading is motivation, without it, don't even think about trading.
You don't see motivation in my post but I do have it. My motivation comes from dreams and one of that dreams is to be financially free. Trading would allow me to reach that.