Uncertainty is a fundamental aspect of life. Closing your eyes and taking a leap is a requirement in love. Not everyone is capable of doing this, but if you know you are, your question regarding what to do should be answered by now.
Robert, Thank you for your thoughts. I have followed your trading in the P/L for the past year or so. While the whole Vegas thing is enticing, I'm not that type of gambling man - although some here on ET might argue my odds of success at the roulette wheel are better than trading! I'll send you a PM about the books I have already read, I have already read the two titles you suggested and many others. I'd be curious to see your full list. I've had my eye on SMB's training program, they seem like a good shop and are well intentioned. Bright obviously is a good name too. Haven't heard the best things about Keystone and got a bad vibe about them from an open house event they had here in Chicago. Any reason you recommend them? It seemed like a hard sales pitch (similar to Optionetics a friend of mine took me to once) I disagree that MI is not much different than Chicago. The whole thought of moving to MI makes me want to cry. I was born and raised in Chicago. I would be moving to East Lansing for 4 years. They have one of the best D.O. schools, which is why she is going there.
It's actually fairly simple. Those who have an edge should trade, those who don't shouldn't. Now, where is your edge? Having a big edge means there is a very high risk reward ratio and there are no hidden risks. Random prop trading with "setups" usually means there is no edge and there is no high risk reward. People who say you nobody knows where the market will go have understand not even the basic premise of trading/investing: advantage of information.
Are you married?, what keeps the relationship together? Are you prepared to trade full-time? Full-time (SIM) trading is a complete different beast compared to part-time trading. Your motivation not to pursue education is not wanting to work for a boss. Does this mean you don't have the discipline for that, then you don't have the discipline to seriously trade. You actually need to have MORE discipline when you trade for yourself. Trading is harder than working for a stupid boss!!! If you don't succeed on the work floor, then you wil fail 99,999% of the time. Chances are even more slim. I would also be careful of your time. You lose time if you fail. You are now 26, but 30 the BIG THIRTY, if you fail. Thirty year-olds are not the same as 26-year olds, just like how there's a huge difference between 18-year olds and 14-year olds in their goals, hopes and dreams for the future. You might have made the right decision to trade, or you will regret it for the rest of your life. I wasted the best years of my life trying to daytrade (im in my twenties) and failing. Now I am gonna swingtrade but pursue an education. I realize daytrading is a stupid obsession and not necesarily gives the best bang for your buck. I realized swing trading is not only in the money department a better choice, but also in the social department, since I am no longer a screen monkey. Good luck.
Different strokes for different folks. This monkey is happy to live off the crumbs from daytrading. Minutes most of the times.
If you decide to pursue the daytrading option, you might want to seriously consider prop trading. If I were you my main concern would be to make sure that I held onto as much of that $100k as possible. I have seen too many of my customers blow $100k, $200k or more trying to retail daytrade. While I have seen most prop traders that I knew also fail, they seemed to have lost a lot less money...usually about $10k or so. Prop firms that require licenses... like Assent, Echo and Bright trading are very good choices and have good track records, but if you do not wish to get your series 7 and possibly 55 licenses then there are non-licensed firms. I believe that Bright trading has an office in Southfield Michigan which is about 70 miles from East Lansing. JC Trading ( I do not think they require licenses) has a spin-off prop firm that is opening in Southfield, Michigan in February and I think they will also offer remote trading. You could probably start in the office for a few weeks then go remote. With the firms that do not require licenses, I always worry that the SEC could come in one day and shut them down like they did with TUCO, but maybe that fear is unwarranted. I previously prop traded thru Assent, but failed to make any decent money. I did everything wrong and did not take it seriously enough. I put in about 1/4 of the effort that I should have. During the course of about 8 months I lost the $5k that I put up as a deposit (this gave me $300,000 in intraday buying power...which I never used). Losing $5k was not a big deal with me and I immediately got a job in the securities industry and moved on. Had I lost a significant amount of money... like $100k I would have been really pissed. The few prop traders that I know who continue to make good money were usually extremely focused on trading and most importantly had a large amount of savings. They did not have to work night jobs or borrow money from family members. This meant that they could focus intensely on trading throughout the week, but could also enjoy their evenings and weekends. They were able to go on vacations and enjoy activites with their wives and girlfriends. I think that is very important and keeps a newbie trader from being miserable. If you do go to a prop firm you could probably put up $5 or $10k (more at Bright Trading) and get plenty of intraday buying power. You can also establish daily loss limits and have that programmed into the software. If you trade small sizes 100 or 200 share lots...you will not make much money, but it gives you a chance to develop some sort of strategy or system without blowing a lot of money. Ultimately only you can decide if moving to Michigan from Chicago is the right decision, but if you do and decide to attempt to daytrade, then I think that conserving as much of your savings as possible should be at the top of your list of goals and prop trading may be a better option for you than retail daytrading.
No one has mentioned using futures. I think he should start out with 1 lots on the YM and then once better scale up or move to the ES.