Your question is near and dear to my life experience, so I'm going to try and give you a sincere response as to how it all worked out for me and all the idiotic things I did to keep learning to trade. My honest and sincere recommendation to you is to save money to live for one year and just go all-out, full-time. You can see why, from my story: This whole "wanting to trade" thing started when I had a job working at a dating service. The job paid like $80,000 a year and I met a lot of girls through my job. There was this guy at the place who was paid to do nothing (family connections) who gambled all day long trading penny stocks. He invited me over for weed and women, but I wanted to look at his PnL. He was a terrible trader, but he got me thinking about how to make money. So I worked out a deal with my boss to try tinkering with trading systems on company time. I guess my boss had some faith in me, so he gave me $25,000 as the base capital over which I put another $5000 to trade. I traded and learned about ECNs, etc. Well, about a month later, executive management was running around with layoff threats and my boss got canned. When he got canned, I lost my cover and had to find another job (and return the 25k + interest.) I ended up finding a job writing internet gambling software. I worked and I tried to trade while on the job again, but got derailed and started gambling. I made a good bit of change, started to learn about expected value, etc. I ended up leaving because there was a crazy guy at the job who I feared was going to bring a gun to work and kill us all. I got yet another job. Tried to work during the day, tried to sneak in trading strategy development. Eventually, I couldn't balance the act, work was a failure. I was gaining weight, doctor tried to put me on drugs (which I never took.) I tried to claim I had some serious sleep disorders to get medical disability to get an unpaid leave to test my trading system. Company gave me $10,000 and said get lost and made me sign a paper promising not to sue them. I took that $10,000, did not get a job, and I went straight to a west coast prop shop. $5000 went into the trading account, $5000 went to cover my mortgage payments for 3 months. It was at that prop shop where I learned the lingo and all the things I needed to talk correctly for job interviews. I lost about $2500 "learning"; overall, I learned a LOT. This is where ideas started to come together. I started interviewing at hedge funds instead of technical shops. No luck. Had to stick to some BS job to support the trading habit. So I got another job and traded during the day (from West LA), drove at night to a second job to Burbank (every day) where I wrote software for 5 hours. It was the most exhausting experience and I was a complete failure at my contract job. I lost a few girlfriends along the way, hit depression, and gained weight from not having time to exercise. Tried many times to get a contract job, most people just did not want to hire a part-timer for any reasonable amount of money. I had a mortgage at the time. I couldn't foot the mortgage so I sold my condo at the very peak of the SoCal housing bubble. I made around $50,000 off the real estate trade. (Incidentally, I had a sub-prime mortgage from WaMu. Subprime because I was an idiot with no credit record.) Didn't have a job for a while, ended up slumming around in a cheap-rent situation with some gay dude actor-wannabe in Hollywood. Paid $700/month to live in the living room. Tried to trade again, but did not have a real edge. I spent several nights at Commerce Casino playing poker to make income, trying to see if I could at least cover rent to buy time learning to trade. This bought me a few months, but I noticed my cash flow was still negative. I left the prop shop, found a remote trading gig. I failed again. By this time, I knew enough about the markets that I could BS my way into trading-related programming jobs. The first job interview post prop shop was an options MM in NYC forecasting volatility. It was a shitty startup, my base salary was $92,000, and I couldn't trade at all. They had a secret "quant" C++ library that the market-data/infrastructure guys couldn't look at. I reverse engineered it every night. The fund collapsed and I ended up working for some government funded academic project. I got a degree while working for the government. I did absolutely nothing at this job, tried to trade, but then they caught on to what I was doing so I resigned. At this point, my resume was in total shambles so I made up a bunch of stuff and started interviewing again. I finally landed a job at a major investment bank. Now, I'm what they call a quantitative programmer, where I write trading strategies for other people. So I see how they work, and then I get paid if they work well or better than expected. Getting this job required an engineering degree at a top 5 school and an Ivy League graduate degree. Prior to having these credentials -and- experience at Fortune 500 companies, no one took me seriously at all and treated me like absolute garbage. Didn't help that I went from a slim young man to a wild-haired overweight crank over the last few years. I was finally making over $100,000 -- built on a pack of lies, but I knew what I was doing and had a ridiculous amount of technical skill by this point. Last year (2008), I really got ripped off after I saved the traders millions implementing a new piece of software, and my cut was a shitty $26,000 [after taxes]. I demanded a raise, they didn't budge, and I just felt like I couldn't do business with people who didn't see value. So I left, and now I'm being pimped by a new place. The new place is nice in the sense that I'm not really bound by idiotic rules about what I can and cannot trade. So after about 4 years of BS in New York, this is where I am at the moment. I have this feeling I am extremely close to really making it big, because I've started to develop automated strategies that really work and for which I state I have a legitimate edge. I'm slowly but surely getting the experience I need, trade management, etc. I don't know how else to put it, but I started tinkering with this stuff in 2003. Now it's almost 6 years and I "see the light" so to speak, where I can read between the lines of people who write on ET and I can tell who knows what they are talking about. I also know what a real edge is, and I got to work on real strategies that did make money. Please, don't kill yourself like I did trying to balance two things. You cheat yourself in the end, either through health, or relationships, or whatever. There's a right way to do it and a wrong way, and my advice is this: 1) Cut your living expenses down as far as possible. Live in a trailer if you can. 2) Have 40k stashed up 3) Use 5k at a prop shop just to get the experience before you bust 4) Make a connection with a decent sub-LLC prop shop before you give it your all. 5) Assume it will take 2 years minimum to see the light. You are probably smart, but there's lots of smart people out there and it still takes them 6 months+. Forget the second job BS. You'll just kill yourself. Take it from the ugliest man on ET. I'm the worst of all the day trader stereotypes rolled up into one.
Hi all, Personally I sarted doing it with 30000 $ as a hobby for 1 year and am still a novice. Half of my trades are winners (around 15 % profit) 20 % are break even (due to trailing stops when the trade goes against me) and 30 % are substantial losing trades (mostly due to emotional reaction -I still can't help moving some stop losses- and learning process ). I always trade(long or short) the same eight stocks because I do not have time enough to collect informations and study deeply the fundamentals of a wider range of stocks. I am an economic teacher in university and leaving in South East Asia. I earn my life rather well as a teacher and every night I trade the Us market due to time difference. I love those two activities and have no issue with the sleeping pb as I am an insomniac anyway. I do believe that until I secure a regular level of profit overal I will still stick to my stressless day job and try to keep trading overnight. Many retail traders are doing the same around me and it ends up giving you time to learn better without the pressure of expecting to make a living from it from day one. To be honnest keeping the to activities maintain also a healthy lifestyle (social life mostly) and give me the opportunity to put trading in perspective. have a great week end
no doubt. great read! I am here at work again. It pays $70k salaray but the 18 hour days are killing me.c(trading and working) I have great mentors at my prop desk but becoming a solid trader takes some time. I am lucky for good resources, but I came into trading going up shit creek without a paddle. Just need to suck it up and continue on this path.
" I lost a few girlfriends along the way, hit depression, and gained weight from not having time to exercise." check, gf is about to peace out pretty soon I have gained weight as I have no time to eat and no time to work out. I am going to give this full time job 2 more months and then trade full time only, I can always come back to this gig If I need too. I am very lucky I have great resources at my hands with my prop firm again cool story bro.
Yo jus wanna focus on da negative son, Im tryin to tell ya'll dat someone who need be takin a second job aint no real trader. Yo think LeBron James also work at Blockbuster? N*gga please. If yo good at somthin and da cash is big, aint no reason to kill yoself at some other gig, yo feel?
it will take alot longer than 2years if u have a second job. most people ignore the work that one must do outside market hours. (going over prior trades, thinkin about market makers pullin new tricks to get u out of good positions etc..) . big props to those of u who made it while having a second job. not havin enough sleep or lack of concentration will make u bound to over-reacting to market momentum ...its actually those kind of conditions that made that 95% stat. trading is a BIG career move and it should be given the proper estimation for one to have a fair chance of success. cheers
I started trading partime for 3months while at college. (Only got about 1hour per day free at odd times of the day though, so wasn't real trading, more just monitoring the ftse really with the odd £1 per point trade for 12points points). I lost my fiance around May time last year though, just before i was meant to finish college, and so that really shook me up and emssed up my mind alot, and made me just not want to go outside at all and so didnt go in for the last 1month of college clases. But so was at home all day everyday drinking loads to try getting my mind out of reality and to not feel anything. I had my laptop with me always, and so i just started trading throughout each day to kill the time and get my mind off anything sad. I started with £759 capital, and after 5weeks id turned that into just over £6,000 while still just trading at £1 per tick. (Was ONLY shorting crude oil daily from the mid 140s down to the low 60s). But after those 5weeks i felt very happy with my understanding of how the markets moved and worked, and so moved out of my family house to start renting my own luxury flat, and after buying furniture and stuff (£7,000 of it on Creditcard/rest from capital) had £2,000 capital left. From then in Early september till Feb this year i generated just under £30,000 profit from that 2k starting capital, since th volatility made it extremely easy. However from Feb onwards the markets became extremely slow moving and dull with no volatility or decent movement at all. And so it became extremely dull and boring sitting there staring at the screen all day waiting for the market to finish moving to an extreme enough level in 1direction, so that i could then counter the move and take 60 t 80ticks from the reveral move. Often took 2 t even 3days before the market moved enough before it reversed, and because i only held my trade for a minutes normally, it was very very dully staring at the screen for the other 50hours. I left trading in April as i managed to get a job working for the Public Security Service. Since i was 8years old id always planned to work in the police force, and so this was a dream come true for me. Im planning on still trading as a 2nd income though, although as il be wokring 12hour shifts (3weeks of days/1week nights), 5days per week, i wont get much time for sitting around in my flat trading. SO will have to start swing trading oil. Which even though i can do, it isnt my preferred style of trading as i dont like holding trades for too long, and especially when im not at the screen. But atleast i wont have to suffer the bordem of day-trading the current market conditions. Im just curious how many other people started with trading as their 1st career though, and then changed to a different career and moved trading to secondary?? Instead of starting in a different job 1st, and then moving to starting trading??
Im sorry I have nothing to contribute to this thread but I just had to comment on this dumb fucker's posts. Whats up with all that? And of all places to be you are on a trading forum LOL. Dude get a life, job, girlfriend, etc.
Hey Omar can you compete with this ghetto ass talk? Thought you might enjoy! Night Befo' Crizzmus Wus da night afo' Crizzmus, and all thru da hood, everybody be sleepin' and da sleepin' be good. We hunged up our stockins, an hoped like all heck, That brother Obama gunna brang us our checks. All of da family, was lay'in on da flo', my sister wif her gurlfriend, my brother wif some ho. Ashtrays was all full , empty beer cans and all when I heared such a fuss, I thunk...."Sh'eet, must be da law". I pulled the sheet off da window and what I'ze could see, I was spectin' the sherrif, wif a warrent fo' me. But what I'ze did see, made me say, "Lawd look 'a dat!" Dere was a huge watermelon, pulled by eight big-ass rats. Now ovah da years, Santy Claws he be white, but it looks like us brothas, got a black un' tonight. Faster than a poe'lice car, my homeboy he came, and whupped up on dem rats, as he called dem by name. On Biden, On Jessie, On Pelosi and Hillary Who , On Fannie, On Freddie, On Ayers, and Slick Willy too. Obama landed dat melon, right there in da street, I knowed it fo' sho', - can you believe that Sheet? Dat Santy don't need no chimley, he picked da lock on my do', an I sez to myself, "Son o' bitch...he don did dis befo!" He had a big bag, full of presents - at first I suspeck? Wif "Air Jordans" and fake gold, to wear roun' my neck. But he left me no presents, just started stealin my shit. He got my guns and my crack, and my new burglers kit. Den, wif my shit in his bag, out da windo' he flew, I sho' woulda shanked him, but he snagged my blade too! He jumped back on dat melon, wif out even a hitch, and wuz gone in two seconds, da democrat sonofabitch. So nex year I be hopin', a white Santy we git, 'cause a black Santy Claws, just ain't worf a shit!