Siwash; To start you need a trading plan. Define your edge and come up with a method to exploit it. You are well enough capitalized that you can day trade stocks so start with the DIA SPY or QQQQ. If you can be successful in that arena you can graduate to Futures. Demo trading is OK if you use it to test your strategies. The problem is with no actual money on the line you tend to trade differently than when you are risking hard earned cash.
you can also get a laptop, with wireless internet (from sprint, verizon, at&t, etc.) and do a little from work, There are always periods of downtime. lunch or need for a mental break during the day. Or you can trade before/after work. There are plenty of international markets, making trading 24x7 available. You could concentrate on things that have a longer time horizon, rather than minute by minute monitoring.
Think and grow rich stresses the NEED for a definitve plan and an edge against any market. It also stresses that this definitive plan will need to be altered as time progresses, as it will encounter hurdles. There is NO easy button. Seeing yourself in the presence of money and having a succesful mindset will do nothing if it is not coupled with hardwork and unwavering persistence. Having the dream is truly step 1 of 850.
A few suggestions: 1. Develop a solid and comprehensive trading plan: entry, exit rules, position sizing, portfolio design and allocation, risk managment, market selection, timeframe(s), etc. Robert Miner of dynamic Trading has in the educational section of his website good info on developing a trading plan. 2. DO NOT DAY TRADE 3. If you develop a technical or quantitative trding plan - BACKTEST it FIRST . Tradersstudio (www.tradersstudio.com) is a powerful portfolio backtester and quite cheap- approx $500/600. 4. After steps 1 & 3 find a trading simulator or a demo account at a good broker like OpenEcry and paper trade for at least 3 months. 5. On the basis of No.4 review points 1 & 3. Only after points 1 - 5 should you even CONSIDER trading. with real money. All God's Best, CPTrader
You are one of the few people that sucked it up and put the finances in order before trying to trade. makes trading MUCH easier when you have other income, and money you can afford to lose. Sometimes makes pulling the trigger harder however as you don't have to make a certain amount from trading each month. Good luck.
Unfortunately, there is an unlimited supply of hotel seminars, spam, marketing email and postal mail, etc. etc. 'They get them excited with the message, sign them up, but leave out the details after step 1 of 850...