People accept data that supports their beliefs and reject information and interpretation that doesn't. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias So the OP will decide according to his heart anyway. But I tell my story, since it might help the OP's decision. I started trading part time in august of 2001, and did not plan to go full time untill "arrived". I had a good system developed with a friend of mine, but it was not giving the results we were expecting from backtesting. 2001 was a small positive year, and 2002 was a 2 digit (%) loss. Early 2003 the company I worked for went bankrupt, and I had to decide what to do: accept a job offer I had, or trade full time. The trading system was for swing trading equities and was making money only on paper. I did not have much saved up, I had a family with two children and we just borrowed money to buy a flat in the city where we lived. So it was an easy decision, you would say, and go for the job. Well, I chose to trade full time and did not accept the job offer. I spent 2003 and 2004 figuring out why aren't we getting the simulation results and fixing the problems. I am slow I know . The system became more and more automated and I stopped interfering with the signals, adding shorts, etc. 2003 was 3 digit percentage gain but with tiny amount of money since we were living off the gains during the year. 2004, 2005, 2006 were all 3 digit gains in terms of percentage, and we could put in borrowed money. The account grew nicely untill early 2007. So I thought I got there and was making big plans. Well, it did not happen. From that point in 2007 the strategy stopped working. It seemed like somebody turned off the tap. It was still making some money, but the drawdowns became very painful and comparable to the reduced gains. So I stopped the automated swing trading system and started daytrading manually futures and fx. I am a slow learner, as I said, and spent almost 3 years daytrading before finally started to turn some profit, but I still have a long road ahead. I think you have a slim chance to make it, unless you have time and money for surviving the (long) learning curve as others also said. But as an employee of some company your chances to "make it" may be even smaller.
Go for it.... The same was said to :Bill Gates, Stve Jobbs & so on. Control your own future. You know you can depend on yourself.
You make a valid point, but I don't think that it is so conclusive. The high rate of unemployment relates to the long expected delay in finding reemployment and the high uncertainty in that delay. Certainly this should be factored into ones stop-loss point (if OP find himself with only XX dollars remaining, he must give-up and starting finding a job.) It isn't conclusive. I have known several people who cashed in their life savings and went traveling or drinking. They are all old or dead now, and the old ones are poor. Can I really damn them? None of them are asking me for pity. I took a big plunge leaving an established firm, which had no futures, or a start-up with smart people and an unlimited future. I am grateful for what I learned from my coworkers and the experiences that I had, but the start-ups future was quite brief. Left unemployed in a state in which I knew no one in a house full of boxes which hadn't even been unpacked with too much debt to go back ... It has been a few years now, but in this economy, economic wounds don't heal. My wife and I fight all the time about my "big mistake." The guy who recruited me to this state has had the opportunity to see that not only evil, greedy wives but also children and friends will desert a man who cannot enable them. If I hadn't taken a chance, I wouldn't have the skills and experiences that I have today. Taking all of the "right", safe, socially prescribed choices is not a recipe for happiness, but for the damnation of a life not yours.
There are risks and there are stupid risks. One-time business opportunities are fleeting but the financial markets will (probably) always be there.
Hi, You know there are ways to trade without quitting your job. I trade stocks with hold times from days to weeks based on end of day data. I spend about 5 hours per week running my screens, entering my trades, and recording my results. I spend more time on research but that can be done whenever. I can continue to work and grow my account much quicker because I don't have to take money out except for taxes. I know I won't match the returns of the top day traders who can compound their money much faster, but I am still very profitable and I have lot's more extra time. Right now I fill that with working. I'm thinking next year I may fill that time with golf and reading.
This list is eerily accurate. I would just add one thing. 37.2 -- We get a little overconfident and don't adjust to changing market conditions and market humbles us again. 37.3 -- We realize that while we thought we were at #37, in reality we were only at #34 again.
Well, last weekend I finally quit my soul sucking day job. It was an amazing feeling to finally be free, although I was too tired from accumulated fatigue over the last year to appreciate it fully I have not been trading live the last months, but accumulating as much capital as humanly possible while still working on my trading and getting at least a few hours of sleep per night. I wish I had more capital, but I did manage to save up roughly 4 months of living expenses. I also have a low interest credit line that I will not hesitate on using if I need to. I honestly think I have a good chance at making it. If not, I would not do it. It`s now or never. If I can`t make it, then I will need to pursue a career elsewhere and let trading remain a hobby. One thing that I believe has helped me tremendously is manually backtesting my method bar-by-bar on the 5-minute chart. I`ve gone through a lot of data and it has truly helped me learn price action and refine my rules and methodology. This is a practice I intend on continue doing even as I resume live trading. Thanks for all the previous advice. Regards, LF
best wishes LF to your successful trading but, I have to say DO NOT borrow money to trade, you would be compounding your losses
I wish the OP good luck and understand the exhaustion of trying to do intraday and work fulltime. But I also agree very much with this post. I did a little better on the timescale described by dwpeters, holding days to weeks. A few dividend bearing stocks I held for months. I know, there will be half a dozen people disdainful of this approach but I'm just relating honestly that I made more money this way than I did intraday. I had to stop when I went to work at Citadel and became more of an investor since then but just wanted to say that the days_to_weeks timeframe was working better for me when I was looking at it everyday. It is likely that my method, a mix of automated mean reversion using Matlab and seat_of_the_pants discretionary using ButtonTrader was just better suited to a slower pace.