Hi, I currently a new college graduate taking a year off before going to law school. During this time I would like to learn day trading. I have a very basic understanding of securities and day trading, thus I am wondering if there are any books out there to help be get started from scratch? Perhaps the best way to get started is by jumping in with both feet? Any advise would be greatly appreciated. I am a total newb at this game, but i am super interested and eager to learn. Thanks everyone. - Pete
"Learning to profit from white noise with both feet in it", by Joe Broke, HFT publications, 2010. This one will teach you a few good lessons happy aspirant...
As a recent college graduate, you will appreciate that you would be unlikely to succeed at the senior level courses if you had not taken the prerequisites. My opinion is that you should learn and practice trading strategies that do not require split second decisions. Once you have the fundamentals and mechanics of trading under your belt, you can proceed to more aggressive and more time constrained strategies. It may take you more than a year to get to the graduate level of day trading.
A college degree in anything is extremely helpful but not a prerequisite. In trading, even the veterans like BigCohonas screw it up. Welcome aboard Jimmywangyang!
Hands down... Combine your new trading/learning experience with some sort of programming language. C# more than likely... Try openquant,rightedge or ninjatrader depending on what suits you best after reading about them. Even if you are going the discretionary route you'll find that you're going to want to at least automate some of your processes. I'd suggest tradestation or something similar but ultimately you'll want use a real programming language. As far as books go... I think most of them lack anything really different after you learn some fundamental practices. So reading a whole book from start to finish is usually pointless. Although there might be a few chapters you may want to look at that spark your interest here and there. Find some ebooks before you waste you're money.Do try the hands on approach though. Use some of the existing systems you find to continuously model them to your liking. If you want delve more into data analysis go through the trading tutorials of R, Matlab, or Mathematica... You can download all those programs as easily as you can R... I'm sure you're a smart guy... Finally I'd have to second the notion of using higher time frames to start because the fundamentals are much the same. Overall just don't spend a whole year studying over actually DOING something. I've seen countless people that claim an education in trading but with no true experience. Not telling you to risk capital before you're ready because you'll more than likely lose it... It might take you five years before you're a bad ass at this. So just don't sit on your hands thinking to long.
P.S.... As far as programming goes don't try to learn the intacacies. Just learn what you need to from working with your trading platform and follow tutorials where needed. Afterall...You're not trying to make calculators.
Jimmy, since you already have the "yang" I'll provide the "yin" = Man:Woman = Trader(2):Market .... remember that there are 2 traders versus the Market (see 2nd para for this particular variation) .... dig? There was a young lady named Gloria, Whose boyfriend said, "May I explore ya?" She replied to the chap, "I will draw you a map Of where others have been before ya." A masculine girl from Khartoum Took a ladylike boy to her room They spent the whole night in a helluva fight as to which should do what to whom.
Dont waste your time daytrading, if you have one year. The learning curve is 2 times that time frame at least. Focus on swing trading, stick to 30min charts and above. Most excellent daytraders eventually go that route, larger gains, about the same losses, much less trades. every tme you enter/exit a trade there is risk. Why do 450 trades in 6 months to get 100pts when you can do 25 to get the same or more. think of the win per trade... I know you look at a 5 minute or 1 minute chart and see how easy it can be when the markets are closed and you have 20/20 vision. but in real time, it will be much more significantly diffficult than it appears.. Take my word for it, been down boith routes. EF