Show me a profession where the majority of participants truly excel. We've all heard wonderful stories about car mechanics, car salesmen, politicians, contractors etc... I happen to be in the building profession, I am on a job right now that has had more mistakes than I thought possible, lack of focus, dropped details, engineers with no field experience, the list goes on and on. It has taken me years to get to the point where I am now. There are a bunch of skills needed along the way to competence and once you have the skills then the real work begins, learning how "you" are going to integrate those skills into mastery. The major hurdle trading has is the day to day in your face reality of how much you won or lost. People underestimate their emotional connection with money, if I go and install a entry door and charge $500.00 and it took longer than I thought or the door jambs weren't plumb and after expenses it actually cost me money to do the job, its easy to look at it like well at least I am able to deposit $500.00 into my bank account and kind of ignore the expenses that ate up all of the $500.00 and view it as a learning experience. From the beginning of our lives money has been viewed as a necessity, for obvious reasons, you start to take away something that we view as a necessity, we start to do some very irrational behavior.
The markets are just one giant casino. Forget daytrading the markets. Invest for the long term in quality companies and bonds. The way to really make easy money in this day and age is by cold calling homeowners in your area out of the white pages to see if they need a chimney sweep. If they do, don't be afraid to get dirty, it's only soot. You go to their house and clean that shit out like a good boy and they give you $200. So you can make $1,000 a week just by doing a measly 5 houses. No need to thank me for the advice. I love helping people out.
"so all u people with a edgu-ma-cation, use your common sense and wake the frig up! you will FAIL! 9 outta 10 do... what are the odds u being that one ? huh.. com'on... who u kiddin?" clearly, you have to be willing to risk capital to find out. i did so, and succeeded. most will fail. most will fail in ALL business ventures? so what? all these ninnies come into trading thinking it is easy. you are competing with PROFESSIONALS (myself included), without business plans, strict rulesets, and a wealth of experience. of course most will fail. that's GOOD. it provides liquidity and trading opportunities. poker is quite similar. i spent a few years making pretty decent money at poker (considering it was fun also), but MOST poker players are going to lose. is poker beatable? yes. if you are better than the other players. losers make excuses and blame other (external locus of control). the market is the most wonderful business opportunity i have ever seen, and i am thankful for it every day.
Thats bad advice. Even the "good companies" like IBM and GE go down in value. The yield on a bond is simply not enough to keep up with inflation. If I had to place my cash in one etf or fund, then it would be based upon the Russell 2000 or the S&P MID. The midcaps seem to perform the best over the long-haul. If you want to invest for the long-term, then you have to do your homework and cherrypick. 2003-2004 is long over and there are no values in the market right now. You can no longer plow your cash into one of the "good companies" and hope for the best.[ QUOTE]Quote from Vinny1: The markets are just one giant casino. Forget daytrading the markets. Invest for the long term in quality companies and bonds. The way to really make easy money in this day and age is by cold calling homeowners in your area out of the white pages to see if they need a chimney sweep. If they do, don't be afraid to get dirty, it's only soot. You go to their house and clean that shit out like a good boy and they give you $200. So you can make $1,000 a week just by doing a measly 5 houses. No need to thank me for the advice. I love helping people out. [/QUOTE]
If you really want to get rich, you have to start a company, and then take it public. Start the chimney sweep business. Grow it and take it public. Advertise in the yellow pages all around the country. Hire independent contractors to do the work and pay them per job. Plenty of poor folks around the country that would gladly do the work. You could get $200 per job, pay the worker $50 per job and pocket $150 per job. If they do 10 jobs per week, you make $1,500 profit per week. If you have 200 workers all around the country each doing 10 jobs per week, that's $15 million profit per year for you. There are sooo many ways to make money in this country without stressing yourself constantly trading stocks.
if you want ot INVEST for the longterm, it is relatively simple *assuming the world does not end* there is not a single 20 yr period in HISTORY of the stock market in the US (well over 100 years btw) where a simple dollar cost averaging every month into a stock index (which is easy to do now with ETF's) wouldn't have provided good returns over that period - better than most other asset classes in most cases, and in every case a positive # this is ONE of the portfolio strategies i use. peter lynch was right. if you want relatively safe, longterm investments, buy what you know. good companies, on balance, tend ot go up. grandmothers in oklahoma know this.
hey .. i have a change of heart... how bout backing me w/ some capital.. so i can make back my money and then return urs to u and if i make any over that.. we can split it... whata say.. please, pretty please...