Here s my 2c read good blogs and watch as many videos as you can to get a FEEL for what real traders are doing. Trade small. I think jumping into futures market is wrong--trade stocks successfully >move to futures. It s all about leverage. And you can make decent money in stocks dont let anyone fool you. You can easily grow your account size from 5k to 25 k in this market if you know what you are doing. It will take at least 2-3 years to be consistent and profitable. Try not to blow up your account before then. Thats just my 2c. And trading is tough--one thing when you are young is the explanation you give yourself when you blow up "i am young i can make it back again" Never do that--Write it on a wall in your trading room or whereever and remember "God's delays are not his denials"
Just want to thank all the traders for taking the time to respond to my thread. Really great insight and helpful. My plan at the moment is to paper trade the NQ as well as paper trade stocks to see which one suits my style better. Going to use think or swim to paper trade stocks using 5k starting balance trading 50 to a hundred lot orders. Only going to be making 1 day trade a day or position trading since i know i have to be as realistic as possible and the pdt rule will apply when i go live. I hope i am pointed in the right direction. Im learning psycology is an important role in trading so even when i have a bad say i stay postive and focus on my error. I might have mentioned this earlier but my problem in the futures market was trading the ES which truly is to leveraged for me. Thats why i have switched my focus to the NQ where i can pick my spots and use a meaningful stop that wont be as tight as say a stop in the ES. And with stocks really going to dedicate myself to learning how to trade them. Might be later on prop trading is for me. Cant rule anything out at this stage. Thanks again traders
Education may be relevant for an investor. Someone willing to break down all of the fundamentals and build portfolios. Traders, not so much unless you're looking write code for software or something elaborate. The best education is to read the books like Market Wizards, talk to traders and trade. You'll either figure it out our you won't. 'Traders', those who make multiple trades a day, need to follow their rules and control their risk. You're not really going to learn that at Harvard. A running joke when I was on the floor, and this joke was shared among alot of the biggest traders in the pits, was that if they're weren't in the pit trading, they'd likely be pumping gas or menial labor of some sort as they barely made it through high school.
ROFLMAO 5% in here are actually making $$$ Best advise I can give you right now is to forget Futs and learn to trade stocks first. Take it or leave it.
With the highly liquid ETFs QQQQ, SPY, and the like, they are the same as trading futures except for the leverage. Learn to trade UNLEVERAGED... there's plenty of time to ramp up your risk.
Barely profitable here after 3 + years. Part-time. Keep trading your paper account. Don't think about going live again until you can double the size of your paper account. After that double it again. If you are "sweating" a position you are either not ready or are under-capitalized, or both.
I dont know if position trading is prudent in these markets when a stock can gap up or down 10-50% against you. I am daytrading only and have only taken 1 overnight trade in the last 2 months and that was a conservative stock. I prefer position trading but not in these markets.I am not making big bucks but i am preserving capital and growing it.
One thing I would say (and I don't know if this point has already been made, I haven't read back through) is that it simply takes time and experience. You can't make up for this by looking at past data. Looking at past data is like reading a text transcript of a conversation on a street corner. You can't make much sense of it. It seems mysterious and garbled and full of non-sequitors. But if you're standing right there, taking part in the conversation, you "get it". There's alot more information in a conversation than just the words. In the same vein, you simply have to be there everyday, all day. Watching it live with something on the line. And it has to be consequential. I don't know if paper trading can work. It didn't really work for me. I had to have "skin in the game" for the experience to really be productive. But maybe it can work for you. It took me about 8 yrs of showing up everyday before it started to really happen. I haven't had to look back since. It has to be intuitive. And that takes a lot of time in direct company with the conversations going on between buyers and sellers.
Dear College, I got my ass kicked my first 18-months trading. Presumably there are some really profitable, consistent traders on ET and some who are not. You want some straight talk? Are you SURE? Okay, here goes. Forget all the technical bullcrap. Forget moving average, Fibo-snatchi, and the like. It will NEVER help you make money. Focus on SUPPORT & RESISTANCE. You can determine S&R by drawing straight lines on the daily & hourly charts. End of story. Use tight stops & play these levels where you have the greatest "edge." Risk 3-points in the ES to make 12+. Make sense? Always look for the EDGE of the market. I hope this helps, young Padawan!