What a coincidence. I have a unique opportunity to give full time neurosurgery a shot. I'm a little cautious on this. What do you all think?
Ipchad. While I'm all for "going for your dream" and "living life with no regrets" and "Go for it ! You only live once!" I think it would be a good idea to hedge your bets by getting a Masters in Finance or some sort of quantitative field. This will cost maybe $40k. Trading fulltime does not have to mean literally not doing any other work/study. And your $100k doesn't make it more likely that you'll succeed. But it will make it a whole lot more painful if you don't. So in short what I recommend you do is papertrade for 3-6 months or however long it takes to get consistently profitable. Then start with $10k and see how you go for another 6-12months. If your results were as per the papertrading, then maybe go to $20k. Scale up slowly. SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE. Maybe after these 1-2 years of trading, you decide that it's not for you OR you do very well OR you lose the whole $10k. At least then you are well on the way of making yourself more employable with your studies, and you know in terms of trading you've given it your best shot. If you follow the above suggestions, you've limited your downside, but left substantial upside. SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD TRADE TO ME
Don't start trying to learn how to trade unless you are a completely independent person that has the mindset you are going to make it no matter what. Any slight doubt and you will take yourself out of the game by your own hand in much worse shape than you are in now.
lpchad, Some thoughts came to me while reading your posts. Do you love this girl to the point where your not looking at others (you know more than normal) for someone that has found their true love? I dated a girl with some money (actually more than one now that I think about it) but they drove me nuts. Granted it wasn't a long journey Thats the bid deal. How well you two will hang out together while not doing things together aside from late night and maybe early morning exercise. Assuming thats all good then the next step is to come up with a winning plan on how to make the big dollars in trading which comes from not losing big dollars in trading. Thats the big trick. everyone worries about how they can make more and more money when they (and me at times too) is forgetting that its the money you dont lose that makes or breaks your month. Anyone can make money trading. its keeping it that is the true test. You have about 100K. two choices really. one is to go downtown to the plaza on Fremont street and put the whole thing on red. of course you might want to go on black since red was used last time by that English kid who sold everything he had for one big spin of the wheel. plan B would be to take a list of must read books like "trading inthe zone" by douglas, and some others like market wizards and more if you pm me I will put a list together for you. someone said get a sim account. great idea for starting out. doesnt matter if you make money or lose it at first. just get used to whats going on so your not using real money to learn something that you could learn for free.. next step, This is the best part too. especially in MI during winter. Sign up for Bright trading classes (in vegas baby). sign up for SMB trading and signup for keystone trading and go through all three of their programs. you will meet a lot of good traders and have ideas and concepts introduced to you that you never knew about before. If your any good and you work your ass off to do the right things when it doesnt feel like the right thing someone will offer you a job from your shithole that your staying in in MI. Perhaps you will also find other traders in an office there working as a group or just sharing office space to have some company and share ideas. you have some coin in the bank. you have the smarts to not be knocking the value of it down on a daily basis by trading it when your not ready. If your with a girl you love and loves you your time in Mi will maybe not be great at the time but if things work out with you two I bet you will look back with fond memories. while MI is not really any different than Chicago at least it is a little different so you will get to see and experience things that you would otherwise not be able to. There is value in that all by itself. When you get there join our chat room when your get started trading. more than one person will give you some hand holding if you want some. you maybe in your house alone but it doesn't mean you cant be surrounded by traders via chat. regardless of what you do I would like to wish you the very best Robert