Hello, my name is Kurt, you may have read my So Cal Prop Trader journal in the Journals section. I am a 28 year old male human being residing in Southern California. I have many hobbies and interests, but none compare to my absolute fascination with the capital markets. In 2007 I received my B.A. Anthropology (sociocultural emphasis) from the University of California, Irvine. For the next few years, I was left wondering where and how I could apply my educational knowledge and experience. One day, bored at home, I was flipping TV stations and landed on CNBC. I had always thought everything stock market was boring and mundane. Business and economics? Shoot me. However, something hit me that day. Seeing fund managers and analysts debate present and future price action, with passion and complex reasoning, immediately caught my attention. I attacked the internet and discovered what I was designed to do in this life. A massive web of money, being shifted around, sometimes with good purpose, other times with no reason other than human emotion. So many players, with so many agendas, and so many approaches. A continuously engaging sea of massive analysis. A place where no 2 days are the same. The more I learned, the more consumed I became. I opened small accounts, probably before I should have, but the training and experience I gained trading these accounts were instrumental. One can study theory and price action as much as they want, but when it comes to the showdown, they do not get the results they expect. When you know what you're doing, you realize you are not competing against anyone else but yourself. Greed, fear, anger, hope. They are all powerful forces which are both responsible for the market inefficiencies that present trading opportunities, and the very lapses in judgement that stray you from your sound and more often than not, correct, decisions. My weakness? My weakness is fear. I am not rich, but I am full of desire, enriched with longing. I studied trading psychology, and ways to overcome it. However, time and time again, my low capital and fear of failure slapped me around. I worked in an office for a little over a year. I had the best day to day calls in the office. I would stun people with what I found. They would profit, and I would not. Eventually, after working two jobs, long hours, 7 days a week for a year, continuously breaking even in my trading, and dealing with non-trading related drama such as work and love woes, the pressure got to me. Let me tell you something, there is nothing more frusturating and depressing in the world, when you put hours of time in, find a good trade that is going to be a knockout, and then botching the quality execution. My time in this environment gave me all the emotional experience and crude realizations I needed. It also taught me one thing that so many do not know about, how the market ACTUALLY works. HOW they trade. HOW and WHY they reach prices. What I learned during this period was with no question worth the year of mental anguish. I have not placed a trade since October 2011. I had to get away, had to regroup, cleanse myself of the screwy mental landscape I had construed. Gone is the emotion. Still with me is the training. It is time to re-enter the markets. I have a fresh mind, a darling girlfriend, a new approach, and most importantly, realistic expectations. However, I refuse to get involved with low, scared capital again. A $25k account is ideal as I could trade on my own rather than giving money to a firm. Whatever the amount, the most important element is that the money needs to be clean of my sweat. This got me to the idea of donations. Rather than ask a single backer, who will expect results and a return, I can ask anyone who reads this to throw a few bucks in the kitty. No one will miss a few bucks, and hence, I am left to do one thing and one thing only: trade the markets. Help this poor, ambitious chap realize his dreams. I've seen the power of the internet in raising money for a variety of causes. I would be forever grateful. The alternative to this approach, is for me to slave away for many years slowly raising capital, or maybe plunging into debt for a M.B.A. so that someone in this world takes me seriously. Donate today. Fulfill your karmic destiny. Make peace with the strange universe that inexplicably spat you into existence. This is not MY time, this is YOUR time. One day, which will be a day of days, I will send each donor a signed certificate of approval, acknowledging that you are quite the baller, philanthropic and damn good looking. You can make your donation via PayPal (zzzfilesk1@aol.com) in the box below**. Thank you. -Kurt Note: Any contributions of $500 or greater receive a youtube shoutout THIS JUST IN: Donate today and your arthritis is gone! -------------- **Donation box can be found at www.kurtsmetana.com
This is a joke right? A single guy in his 20s with burning passion and zero life expenses (other than top ramen and a mattress) could earn and save 25K in six months if he wanted to. Shovel shit, sell door to door, collect debt, drive a truck, start a freelance web gig, consult to small businesses, bar tend, find a couple soft poker games, on and on. There's a million ways to grind out a small stake. If you can't think of any, you aren't creative enough to deserve charity. And you should really be leaving the charity to those who need and deserve it anyway, like the farmer in Uganda who could use a hand-held irrigation pump to save his crops and feed his six kids. As a guy in his 30s it makes me feel like a geezer to say this, but, seriously, what the hell is wrong with the up and coming generation? You guys are collectively the laziest bunch of spoiled entitled brats I've ever seen.
LOL, wow you're so screwed! Tomorrow's headline on CNN: "Man in 30s struck by lightning." --- But anyway, how do you know I'm not working to accumulate that small fortune? I actually have a sum of money saved and growing to reach that mark, this is just one of my "shoveling shit" ideas.
25K is not a small fortune. In fact it isn't that much money at all in the big scheme of things. You're obviously articulate and bright (or bright enough to fake it at least). Why go this route? Asking people flat-out for a hand-out is just, well... let's say it's a matter of honor and taste, as to the things a healthy, able-bodied person will do or won't do to make a buck. But do whatever you want, I suppose turning tricks might work faster than actually earning the grubstake too. Don't act like 25K is a lot of money though. It isn't. And if you aren't resourceful enough to pull together a stake that size in a reasonable amount of time (like less than a year), then I doubt you have the internal resources to make it as a trader.
Kurt, you need to look into peer to peer lending. Here's a start: http://www.prosper.com/ You can borrow up to 25k from thousands of people. That's 25k total btw. People can invest in you with small increments in money. The free market will determine the rate of interest you will be charged. They do look at your credit so I hope it's good. I've actually heard of traders getting loans on prosper for trading. You can read more about peer to peer lending here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person-to-person_lending Here's another unique idea. Do a raffle. Sell raffle tickets. The winners get's 50% of your first year p&l or some default minimum. Say you sell tickets for $100 each. Agree to pay out $1000 to winner or 50% of your p&l, wichever is greater. Get creative!!! There is a lot of money in LA. Find a way to tap into it!
How would we know that your fear of failure is gone? What have you done to change your beliefs about this? If you actually get this which I highly doubt, no offense, it might actually be harder to trade since its not your hard earned money ect... Why not just put up like 10k in a prop account, get 20x leverage? Do you have a track record that shows some progress? Time machine calls are great, but you can't get paid with them. It sounds like you are blaming your firm for making you unprofitable because of the split, I think thats delusional in all honesty. What you are saying is you were gross profitable but net negative. I remember watching your journal and thinking 'wow this guy overtrades and has a lot of should of could have's'. I think being gross positive and net negative is ok in the beginning, as you are starting to show some progress, but probably overtrading, and not thinking for the big picture. I'm not trying to be a dick, I enjoyed your journal ect.. Just being realistic, I really hope you get back in the game, but I think your approach is off.
Are you the same guy as "hitman" who posted here years ago? My pattern recognition skills say so. But not sure. Thanks
Haha, I remember this site, when I was just out of college I'd make the spread. It wasn't much but it was still free money.
No, no, no, I remember hitman. He use to trade at Worldco around the time I was there. Kurt traded with T3 out in LA. Similar personalities but different people. I would love to know whatever happened to hitman.