ahhh the 80's...those were the good ole days. lost my first 5 grand in gold in 1985 trading with clayton brokerage...commissions at $125 a car. by the crash of 87 i had it goin on though. i wanted to jump that day. i was in the market about 15 min and made $65K. if i had stayed another 15 i could have made $200k. what a day that was. helped me get back some of the loss from jan 86...i was short 35-40 sp contracts and the usual jan break didnt come. shorted 35-40 crude contracts and they had the biggest snow storm in europe in 100 years. i was short dont remember how many swiss franks and the bottom fell out of the dollar. God was pissed at me. never forget that feeling when i puked 140k. ahhh the 80's...those were the good ole days. NOT oh yea...and a huge move on the s&p was 2 points
>OldTrader I too turned 62 in August of this year. Been trading for 35 years. It seems as though most traders on ET are in their 20's to 40's, and base their trading on some form of technical analysis. I don't know about you, OldTrader, but I started with TA in the days when hours were spent plotting hundreds of charts by hand daily, and before all of the mechanical indicators that are in fad nowdays were invented. When it comes to TA, I am one who 'eats this stuff up'!! And while I have never found that it would be benificial to venture beyond the original forms of TA, what I would like to say to the 'young farts' is that if you do enjoy studying TA, in whatever of its forms you choose, never think that you have reached the point where there is not much left to learn. The significant financial gains are great, but the benifits received through a never ending study of such subjects as TA, such as mental alertness etc., in the declining years are even greater. Now, back to my TA studies!
Remember it, I still have mine. The hard part was extending the giant metal antennae just far enough to get a signal but not far enough that the professor would notice what you were doing. I used to type in the closing quotes every night into Excel on my mac to create my charts and technicals.
Didn't realize there were so many older traders here. Some of you are one foot in. I just meant that if you're 35 or older AND have survived this business for 10 or more years, one could be considered an "old fart" in this game. Could be. So if any of you want to continue this thread from an "old fart's" perspective, please do. We could talk about anything; Harry's, surviving '87, lunchtime AA meetings at Trinity Church, the daytrading explosion, being long through the 9/11 attacks, divorce? Floor's open if anyone wishes to keep it open...
Disagree. I doubt I've learned much if anything about TA for several years... Then again, I like to KISS. That means lots of stuff has been discarded... lots more ignored.
I never got a QuoteTrack, but remember downloading prices every evening using my 1200 baud Hayes modem. Seems like prices came from a firm named CSI, and they charged you for every bit of data (open, high, low, close for a single day on a single security might cost a couple cents. I was trading commodity futures during the '87 crash while in grad school. I think I was paying $45 per contract with my futures trades. Say what you will about the 'good old days', but I'd take today's trading over those days without hesitation.
It was a lot easier to make money as a retail trader with 1/8's and then "teenie's" back in the day. Decimals destroyed this business. Now you need to really know what you are doing, no more FREE LUNCH. el surdo
Bought my first stock, an IPO, Larr Optical, while an undergraduate in college, 45 years ago. The company promptly went bankrupt and i eventually learned that brokers don't always have your best interests in mind. Bought silver just before the Hunt brothers were busted and i learned that when something goes up in price beyond all reason there probably is a reason, and it is not necessarily a good one. I'll be 66 next month, trading full-time, and still making mistakes, but enjoying every minute.
37 y/o here. First trade was in 1994, got hooked on Canadian junior mining exploration co's. Never made any money at it. Been full time for 6 years now. I'm more interested in trying to qualify for the Hawaii Ironman now though. Age is what you make it. When I'm 60 I expect to still be able to run circles around the average 30 year old.