Hi All, I need your advise on where I should start . I'm a total newbie when it comes to trading, have about 2K to play with (i.e. this is the amount of cash I can affort to loose). I'd be willing to engage in shorting stocks, but I'd have to do practice it first until I can reasonably forsee the outcome. Is there an account that I can setup and trade for practice using 'funny money'? Lastly, is there a statistic on trading that shows how many people actually loose money trading? Thanks to you all in advance for replies.
Just out of curiosity: why do you want to be a trader? Also, what makes you think you could succeed at it? I have to give you good points for: -you decided to get educated first -deciding to play with funny money first -even after that, you allocated a small amount that you can afford to lose and finally: -you came to ET to get your education!! Those were all good decissions, so you might have a future in trading. As answers to your questions: -most brokers have a papertrading account where you can practice, but if you are honest, you can do it literally on paper -the most widely quoted number is a 90+% failure rate, thus the odds are against you - ET has a search function, and most likely all of your questions were already answered in an earlier post. Just try to use the correct searchterms Welcome, and good luck!!!
Thanks for your comments. What are the search terms you would use (if you were me) to learn about all aspects of day trading (as an example) or other short term opportunities?
For a newbie, daytrading should not be in your mind, do a little swing trading first you have more control over your risk, and you have more time to understand/study stocks. Also, Welcome hope you enjoy ET forum.
The best idea is probably just browsing first, without any particular terms. So just put in any very well used words like "trading, strategy, profit, chart, platform,etc." and read, read, read. As you keep reading, you will run into ideas and topics that interest you and you can research them more thorough later. As about the papertrade platform, you probably need some kind of charting platform too. Most platforms have 1 week-1 month free trial, so check out a few and stuck with the one you like. Sierrachart.com has 1 week free trial and even after that it is very reasonable... For a very good and free start, you can use Bigchart.com. For stocks it has a delayed quote, but since you are practicing first, it doesn't matter. For indexes it is realtime.... And again, you can give yourself a 10K-100K paperaccount and start trading right away on Monday. Best thing is to keep a diary and NEVER take back a trade. Once you made it, you have to stick with it, just like in real life.... By the way, you didn't answer MY questions...
Here's my two cents. STOP TRADING if you are doing. A total newbie entering into a market is similar to engaging in a war unarmed. You are only waiting for slaugther! Actually you shouldn't treat trading as playing. Treat it as a business. You need to study hard before you run a business. You need to study hard before you become a doctor. the same thing holds true to trader. You need to get "qualifications" before trading. Bypassng the need of "qualifications" earns you notihng but hard lessons. Most people lose because they don't know how dangerous the market can be, for unpepared traders. However market can be very, if not extremely, safe if you are well-prepared! 2K seems to be a bit lacking in captial. You need to have sufficient before you can play well, or a few bad luck may injure you severely. You may have a hard time to stand up again, not to say confidence loss. 5K-10K may be a good start, but it somewhat depends on what market and instrument you trade. It is said to be 90% of (new) traders are losing money. Only 10% manage to win. From what the figures say, it seems trading is not an easy game. Learn as much as you can this year. Don't you think learning 1 year is crazy? It might not be. If you realise how valuable this advice is, you are a big step towards success. Books are the best teachers in my humble opinions. I learn most from books. The second is practice and research - much knowledge are built based on my work (eg I read chart after chart to find out some interesting chart patterns which seemingly no book I read has mentioned). As a newbie, do NOT try to learn from forums, or chit-chat trading rooms. They are only suplementary in nature. You won't learn much there. Forums are full of different people, many of them being newbies or beginners. Thus you may not be any worse than them Then how could you expect you can learn much from them while they ned your help too. Even if you met any advanced or champion traders, they would rarely teach you "the keys" to trading, so you won't learn anything superior from them either, if you met one. (Oh! you are learning from my post, so it's a bit contradictory By the way, you don't really need "secrets/golden keys" before you can earn consistently in the market. But you have to find it yourself in books) As to experiences, if you daytrade, you need to be familiar with your trading software, your reaction and decision-making speed. You can learn through all of them through sim trading. As to psychology, I know someone may pop up and scold me, but experience doesn't really help to make you disciplined. however it may be true in the sense that most people only learn after they get burnt. Most people won't learn before the burn. If you were such a person, then get some hard lessons by trading real. Losing enough mony may help you realise the importance of discipline. That's what I do to train my discipline - your mileage may differ. Books: lots, lots of lessons can be learnt from books! You don't need to pay for each lesson. Market is not a good place to elarn discipline. Its tutorial fee is way too high. Lessons include but not limited to, how horrible market crash may be, lessons by others (including some of the legendary traders) why some greatest/most successful traders still fail. If you understand the behind reasons why discipline is important, you will know how stupid you are if you are not disciplined. Money/Risk Management: Actually discipline, un-emotions, money/risk management are all your friends. If you can realise their importances, you won't wish to deviate from these friends. I hope you won't learn them all from trading real. It's a bit late, and you will suffer! Sim trading: Trading is what? Trading is a MEAN business. I treat trading "funny money" as "serious money". It may be hard to believe, but I feel worried even if I loss virtual money. You may not understand why. But this helps me much towards success. Try to mock as close as possible what you (will) do or did in real trading. Remember everything you did in sim trading. After enough practice, simply act like a copy-cat: copy EVERYTHING in sim trading to real trading but no more. ========================== After all, they are all 2 cents. Someone, difference in opinions is normal. No need to be too angry. The above are written in a bit hurry, sorry if I make mistakes in the post. If you wish to learn more, feel free to PM me. Thank you.
This statement may attract a lot of laughs. Just don't get too angry about that. But I do understand why newbie will say that. So you chose daytrading. Daytrading is one of the hardest part in trading, so you get the idea. for a newbie, daytrading may be the fastest way to lose all your hard-earning money and get kicked out of the market! There're a lot of requirements in daytrading. Learn well and prepare well before you even think of daytrading.