So pretty much, I'm young, ignorant, and in many cases naive. Even moreso when compared to many of those that have been involved in the market for many many years. But where do I go and how do I shorten this gap? I've been interested in trading for quite some time, and yet I feel like there's been such a barrier for me when trying to learn about trading or get started and involved. It's always apparent of how unknowledgable I am, especially in many threads on the forum as terms, ideas, and subjects go right over my head. I feel such a lack of understanding of things, especially of the market mechanics that effect trading, as well as the trading strategies and signs that would cause one to make decisions. The ability to analyze information and know the effect and/or take an action to say the least. Even knowing what information I need in the first place! But I definitely feel lost as to where I should go to learn what I need to know, I really wish I knew someone personally that could clear many things up but unfortunately thats not the case. I read as much as I can online but that only goes so far, and I've just bought A Random Walk Down Wall Street as well as The Master Swing Trader which I will soon read. Now, what I believe much of the population does that are less involved are the buy and hold type that invest in something for up to decades for long-term profit, which is definitely not what I'm looking to focus on. I have the desire to go for much shorter terms and hopefully use trading as a source of side or even primary income in the future. But of course, I may be speaking in naivety as I'm not sure if I know what's even realistically possible! I'm in college right now and am currently taking an economics course which is very informative coming from knowing nothing, and recently talked to my professor who seemed quite fixed that what I'm looking to do is quite unrealistic. He pretty much made the point that most traders who make a profit worth noting are either very lucky, very very well exclusively informed, or very very very smart. That there isn't really any factor of skill and that you can't really be "good or bad" at trading. To sum it up he pretty much said "If doing this is so possible why doesn't everyone do it?" How true is this? Sorry if it's a long post! TL/DR: How did you go from how much you knew starting out, to how much you know now? All responses will be very much appreciated, thanks in advance.
Consider offering to intern for a trader for free. You will learn what he can teach, and maybe he will receive something in return from you.
just start trading, if it doesn't work out you can always become a college economics professor since apparently that doesn't take much luck, or any connections and you don't have to be very, very, very smart. (that must be why eveybodys doing it.)
The problem with trading industry in general is that 99% of the educational material is JUNK and of no use. By the time a trader figures out a method to fit his/her personality, 2-4 years along with capital is under water. I went through same process till i finally decided i will only read or pay attention to someone who is currently trading and has record to back it up. Somehow i came to know about Mark Fisher of www.mbfcc.com and author of The logical Trader. When i read he is has an MBA from Wharton with distinction, was the youngest pit trader at one time and per Paul Tudor Jones is the best pit trader ever, i shut down everything and its been a life changing experience. Following is from a fellow ACD trader named maverick74. Good luck. Here is what I like about ACD. The idea in trading, like anything in life, is to look for the opportunity that others are not seeing. Head and shoulders, reversals, doji's, 200 day moving averages, moving average crosses, support and resistance, etc, everybody sees that shit. It's plain as day. Hell if you miss any of that stuff, CNBC will point it out to you to remind you. There is no edge in anything that everybody can see right in front of them. So the idea is to become a good price action trader and ACD allows you to see price action better then any other method I have seen. This is why it's hard to back test ACD as many have tried because they are back testing simple binary action. The idea is to identify price action that is NOT obvious to everyone else. ACD is one of those things you just have to practice like tennis. The more products you watch, the better your feel will become. Because ACD is a price action based methodology, others can't take your edge away from you. You know the old saying, if everyone does it, then it won't work anymore. That doesn't apply here. If you can learn to master ACD, you can keep your edge into perpetuity.
I started out trading by trial and error, I did not read anything or get help from anyone this is the best way because getting help from many different people will do nothing but confuse you as everyone has their own way of trading. Screen time whether you are trading live or a sim acct. is the best way to learn. I have been trading 12 years. They didn't have sim accts when I started so I put $600.00 in an acct and off I went. I did pretty good actually. You need to figure out what works for you and the ONLY way to find that is by doing it yourself. Good Luck!
obtaining a PhD is a long and arduous process measured in years. it is extremely difficult to get a position as a tenured professor.
as opposed to trading which is a long arduous process measured in years and extremely difficult to get profitable? oh no, that's right, according to the professor, trading requires luck, connections and you have to be smart. I guess the only way to check his "everybodys doing it" reasoning is we would just have to count and see if there are more traders or professors. Or we could just conclude that the economics professor was talking out of his ass about something all he knew about was that it is hard. (probably tried and failed, and became a professor.)
I second the notion to go read the ACD Method thread. It is hands down the best thread on this board. When you understand what's going on in that thread, you will be ready to start putting strategies to the test, probably starting with a sim account. Don't let your capital burn a hole in your pocket, i.e. don't rush into putting real money on the line. If you turn out to be very good at trading, there will be plenty of money for you down the line.
IvoryOctopus: The answer is very simple--get a "paper account" (these are readily available with forex) and simply do your best at trading, and see how you do (although keep in mind that some can apparently win at paper trading but can't, for emotional reasons, with real money). In the final analysis, the BEST answer to any question is a direct test. But I do think that you've zeroed in on the problems with trading: there's no "trading school" you can go to, or courses you can take, which will "guarantee" you a living at trading. Winning trading is based on JUDGMENT--and modern education is WOEFULLY inadequate at training in judgment. So you can't know whether you can be a success at it until you ARE a success at it (and sometimes, not even then: they are many traders who have done very well, only to then lose it all).
Trading is much more closely allied with roulette than with economics. It is almost as easy to become a trader as it is to walk into a casino and plunk your twenty down on the roulette table. And it is almost as hard to make money trading as it is to make money playing roulette. It is far harder to become a tenured economics professor than it is to become a trader, but it is far easier to make money as an economics professor than it is as a trader.