First, I live on an island call Singapore where everyone's mindset is pretty much : trading = gambling. Next, I'm 20 yrs old...young, very very young. Combine these two together plus the fact that I have decided to make trading my future career and you'll get a person who will not be taken seriously...ever. Worse of all, my family members don't either. My mom kept telling how all investment books are lies, all posters on this forums are trying to con me, how the powers-that-be is trying to con people into losing money in trading and everything I read and know about trading is a big stinking bag of lies. People either say "you have too much time on your hands" or "you must be a rich kid to throw away your money like that" or tell me i'll jump off a building some day. All this and guess what...they have no idea what trading is! 99.9% of them don't know you can "short" and doesn't know a way to trade besides the totally bullshit "buy low sell high". Oh...the frustration...
I don't think trying to convince someone trading is good will work. It will take lots of time that you could be using for studying etc. Let your actions speak louder than your words. Also papertrade until you have some sort of system and then start way small. You do not want to lose massive amounts of capital when you start. Just remember- press on. Good luck
I am a frequent visitor to SEA, and I can say singaporean are very fimiliar with financial markets, and it's your family and relatives who aren't much aware of it. A country like Thailand even has scroling Ticker moving across bottom of most TV channels showing quotes for local stocks. Yes, it's to your advantage that you started early, because you don't have much money to lose too much money, by the time you make any money, you might have learned this game. As far as trading enviroment, i can say Middle east is much poorer than south east Asia.
There are people trading in Singapore (SGX,SIME..etc) and some who are in the financial world (businessmen) are "in the know". The general public (80%? I dare say) have no clue besides the general misconception: trading = gambling.
Do you have an education? Have you studied academic journals? Are you good at math? Are you smart? In other words--Should they take you seriuosly?
sometimes you must listen only to yourself. this has the potential to make you very strong (mentally). if after all the negative comments you STILL continue with what you want to do--and eventually make it, your mind will be changed forever.
I have been in basically the same situation for a couple of years now, and I don't think it has much to do with your geographical location. What has helped me a little bit is to ask myself these two questions about a person who tells you trading is bad/gambling/stupid/etc.: How does he make a living? and What does he know about trading? It might also help to look at (or estimate) people's bank accounts: "Everyone" thinks I'm nuts to even try trading. Well, that is everyone who has never known anything but the rat race (=work like a slave for a company who gives you just enough to survive, buy their products and produce new slaves/consumers). I know only two people who have really made anything out of their lives: One of them manufactures trinkets and owns a lot of real estate in Austria, and the other owns vinyards in California. These two people were the only ones who took me seriously right away. One of them just said "What you're doing is probably a lot more difficult now than it was a couple of years ago." (That was in late 2001.) And he also wanted to know exactly what instruments I was trading / planning to trade. The other (who is more of a friend of mine and not just an acquaintance) said he had tried to speculate in the foreign exchange markets when he was young and made a few million Deutschmarks only to lose it all and then some in one bad trade. That's why he turned his back on almost every type of trading, but he said he believed that there were more than just a few people making a good living as daytraders, and that he was convinced I had the potential to make it, but that it would probably require a lot of work and persistence as well as good judgement to stop trying if it should not work out. What also helps a little was that my biggest "Nay Sayer" is my father, who has the attitude that the only people who make it as entrepreneurs are a few lucky ones, and as a consequence, he has never tried himself. When he lost his job in his 40s, he just retired and has been awaiting his death ever since. It's a little easier if it is that kind of person who tells you what you are trying is impossible.
I would like to borrow the following quote from one of GG's posts: "The ones who don't do anything are always the ones who try to put you down." - Henry Rollins