That's awesome you were able to able to come back from losing 140k to make a living trading. What books/information did you find most helpful in your education as a trader?
I don't believe in sim trading to get a feel for trading... it completely misses your own judgement. I probably works better for algo/auto trading, not for discretionary IMO. When I trained guys for options trading, I never put them on the simulator (which was pretty good) just because they would not get the real feel of losing/making money. Off course I got a little bit of a shit storm from the CEO when they screwed up, but at least they learned a valuable lesson that you would not learn on a sim. You always remember REAL fuckups, not the sim ones....
Long term the way to go, the amount of knowledge you need to learn for day trading is huge, the so call "edge" is knowledge of knowing more than next guy and programming, there are too many twists and turns in day trading if I was to do again that you have to learn. You should read, buy or steal how other traders enter the market for day trading so you know what fails the most often and take advantage of their losses. Where they who mostly are weak financed traders, areas they take loses are good areas to take other side. Many day traders have to make 50-150% on smaller accounts just for fees. Long term really best way for much larger profits that trend, there are many Commodity funds or hedge funds that only trade long term, learn spreading as most of those who worked pits traded for themselves and learn about future options for hedging or for profit. Trading commodities is no different long term than trading stocks, BUT you better be able to program to back test many years to understand different trends and markets that either grow or raised, seasons, like never sell coffee in July or never sell OJ in January, South America is in winter in July and same with OJ, weather is chief with crops, but here is the thing, much is factored in the charts. And long term the fees greatly reduced. Good luck.
I know, I know. This has been argued until the cows came home, and they never came home so it is still argued. Blah blah. I do think there is a place for sim. But everything in moderation. Just don't do it too long before going live. Don't consume sim like a sieve for years. Know when to go live. But to go live RIGHT FROM THE START AS A NEW TRADER is also very bad. Unless you gots lots of money to keep kicking your trading account's can down the road, not trying some sim bits would be foolhardy IMO.
Yeah that's true... I would just start really small as @BONECRUSHER said. Sim is like the Matrix, you could get stuck in there forever!!!
Something I've also said before...I read every damn thing I could get my hands on for years, but in the end I closed my mind off to any outside information and focused on pure price action and the natural dynamics of the markets...a deep intuitive type of observation with an open mind to any crazy concept I could find. In other words...get crazy and expect conventional wisdom to not be the answer. Read everything you can to give your brain a base, but expect to create your own original masterpiece.
Well I kind of, umm, cooked them up and ate them! I was hungry, and well, when you crave cows, only cows will do! (lol, sorry).