That's true. I've heard a lot about that from the older guys. I envy the fact that back in the old days you guys were able to trade before decimalization. Because some trades that guys in my era now get wicked out of, you guys may interpret as normal movement. Plus, you guys got to trade during the '90s -- well lucky for everyone that kept their money anyway.
I graduated last year and work as a prop for a hedge fund but do sidework to survive till I really become profitable. mark cook said it takes 3 years so for all you quitters out there shame on you. Anybody can PM me to talk day trading if you would like.
Man, I was thinking you were talking about Wade Cook there for a moment. Anyway, unless you have an exceptional talent, I say you need 5 years minimum. It's a steep learning curve and it will wear you down. But if you're able to come out in one piece, it's well worth the effort.
I graduated high school 2 years ago, went to college for a year, hated it, left. I got a job driving a truck, doing deliveries around the city for about 10 months. It was ok, I saved some money, but I knew I wasn't going to do it forever, and I was already getting backlash from my parents telling me to go back to school. I quit my job once I got a job at a prop shop in Montreal, I've been trading there everyday for a little over two months. I'm still nowhere close to consistent or profitable, and sometimes I feel like I'm improving and learning but then I find myself in a losing position because I made the same mistake I already identified and said I won't do again. I also put 80% of my savings into questrade, so I can swing trade, and the rest into oanda so I can try out forex. Basically I love the markets, I know this is what I want to do, I've been reading financial magazines, books and websites since I was 10 and I don't mind going a few months or even more without a paycheck. It's just hard.
Wait what? Why do you need a sidejob if you work for a hedge fund? If you actually work for a hedge fund, you would get salary and then bonus based on your performance.
Started when I turned 18, trading at an NYC prop shop. Never went to college... this business is all I know.
Graduated in June of 09. Had internship at JPM but no offer. Want trading to be my only career, just quit bartending. Haven't had $ to blow up...yet Looking for shops as we speak, who wants to hire me.
Started trading when i was 15 (first trade was March 2000, real solid timing). Traded throughout HS. Traded the whole time I was at college and switched over to trading futures sophmore year; skipped about 1/3 of my classes so i could still trade. Somehow I managed to graduate w/ a degree in finance/management in 2007. I was a big bear at the time and figured that the upcoming RE crash would make it tough for those of us just getting jobs on wall st. so i decided to keep trading for myself rather than go look for a job I would later lose. Of course, not having a big account or a steady paycheck and living in NYC at the time forced me to make a lot of sacrifices, many of which I'm still making today. I can't remember, nor do I want to, how much money i've lost over the years. It's only been a couple years now that I've become consistently profitable. After watching about 10 years of price action day-in and day-out I've developed a pretty good gut feel for the market; something only years of experience will provide. I've evolved from focusing on fundamentals to focusing on technicals to focusing on what i call socio-psychological analysis. I don't think I could ever get a "real job". Being an automaton is easy and soul-crushing, speculating is a real challenge. Each day is different. It's not so much the freedom as a real desire not to be a mediocrity; to do something better than most and be rewarded for it. It's one of the few professions that is completely performance based and the possibilities are limitless. If you can trade 10 es contracts you can trade 100 or 1000. So, I figure by the time I'm 35 if I haven't broken down from the stress, stroked out, or smoked/drank myself to death I'll have this thing pretty much figured out...
It's very hard. A lot of what you say sounds very familiar. I remember thinking that I had learned the lesson of holding losers too long about 3 years ago when I took my first big loser (at the time I was allowed to trade max size 600 shares) and I got smoked in GPN. I did learn the lesson, but I had to learn the lesson a few more times before it really stuck. So don't beat yourself up about repeating mistakes...it happens. Hopefully it will eventually stick.
Mark cook in Ohio from the 3rd market wizards when he talks about playing the $TICK I work at a hedge fund yes but I do not have the numbers yet so I starve to death until i do and work on a startup on the side to make extra money but thats about to change to full time trading but Im still less than a year into the path to day trading. How long do you think it took a guy like Steve Cohen?