In the OP case at this specific time in his/her life, there is zero hope for trading success. Why would anyone think they can just step into the markets and make money simply because they have a sudden need for it? Heck, everyone needs money for very valid reasons... the market doesn't care one whit. I'd like to think the OP is being 100% honest and no other agenda. If indeed that is true, there is zero hope for a successful trading outcome.
Just to join other ET members' good advice: Don't trade. Buy lottery tickets if you want, but don't trade. Actually your odds are better in a casino than the forex market. To trade properly, you should not care about the money. Don't trade thinking about paying bills, medical or otherwise. If you do, following your system (if you have one) will be tougher; and you won't just stay aside when you should, because you *need* the money and you *must* make money right now. There are no quick solutions to your problem, maybe you should think about getting a 2nd job, and a loan, while doing your own research and learning how to trade as a long term project.
The replies I got proves that there are real caring souls around, although most here are in the cold and detached world of trading. In fact, there are kinder souls here than a lot I met recently in the medical industry. All this msgs really touched me, and makes me feel that I am not alone in this world. Well, I am an Electrical Engineer by training and have some education in Fortran programming, but I guess that is probably almost 20 years ago. Wonder whether that is enough to program my own trading strategies. 15 years ago, a friend persuaded me to deposit money into trading forex, and I sort of gained some trading experience from there. Eventually, I stopped because I found out that it was a buckle shop and the management pays those sales who brought in the trading account a big percentage of the money in the event the account dried out. I will heed the advise of those here and stop trading with the mentality of meeting my family medical needs. However, I do enjoy trading after this 2 months of fact finding and trading. Anyway, I am way overdue in moving into a life model that deviates from the trading-time-for-money-to-make-ends-meet symptom. I have been procrastinating for long time because the security my job offers. It is only when things happened that one realises that they should have acted early. For now, I don't think I can keep my job for long either, as the demand for my time during the day to be at home to handle the situation heightens. Therefore, I will need to do something at home anyway and envy those of you who have learned the trade and can work in the comfort of your home. Therefore, I will set aside a small sum of money first for more education in trading and buy whatever soft or hardware necessary to be a more efficient trader. I will take this opportunity to develop my trading hobby and use mini accounts to test my strategies. Being a very discipline person, I will not allow this trading activities to eat into my core funds to meet the medical demands of my love ones. Therefore, thank you again people for you kind advise. Do give me more advise on learning the ropes in your industry; like should I subscribe to TradeStation or there are others out there that I can slowly develop my trading strategies and do back testing which you feel is more useful.
Honestly, you'd have better luck with actually performing surgery on your family member for the first time, versus trading for the first time (with no knowledge of either)
I appreciate your advise TorontoTrader2 and I will take note. Besides the gloom, tell me the positive things associated with being a trader. Like I have said, for now, I will go back to learning and developing my trading strategy, backtesting..and if I really do trade, I will start with mini accounts which at most will cost me a few decent meals. If there are someone out there who is willing to mentor me, hopefully, I may be able to see the other end of the rainbow and instead gain a few decent meals I know the road ahead is tough, but everytime when I encourage my love one to fight on and win the war against her illness, deep inside, I know she is fighting a more desperate and tough war alone..( I decided against using the word 'hopeless' here and chose 'tough' instead
a good fit role model for you to follow http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10237&perpage=6&pagenumber=1
Everyone starts out "backtesting their trading strategy." I did this for years. It is almost a fool's errand. Only a few people will become a truly successful trader this way. And you are facing years of hard work and potentially losing a lot of money trying to achieve this. You might have somewhat better success leveraging other people's systems, letting them do the hundreds of hours of work. Of course, that is the problem, which system??? I screen hundreds of systems constantly, to turn up the few with promise (and put a lot of work into this effort). I subscribe to a few systems that do rather well (no they are not mine) I am still trying to decide whether this is a sincere thread (sorry, but there are a lot of pranksters out there). If you PM me, I will tell you one place that has several systems that you can follow and convince yourself whether you are interested. These are signal providers. You pay them a monthly fee, and they tell you when to get in/out. But I do not have any interest in "mentoring." And I do this with your promise you will not pass this on to anyone. The last thing I really want, is to encourage more subscribers (I am a believer in the theory that too many people trying to do the same thing lessen its value).
"Don't trade what you can't afford to lose." "The less you are afraid to lose, the more you will make." Both true, and neither apply to you. This is really a terrible idea with the pressure you exhibit. Papertrade or trade tiny lots until you can make $. Like a previous trader mentioned, backtesting is mostly a waste of time especially without the experience to develop a possibly profitable strategy. Add my nine years to the tally.