I'm 12 - it'll be awhile till I start trading real(I have made two with my dad). I don't think WT is the holy grail. There isn't one. Wizetrade is just a tool, and I am using it to impact my decision on a trade. I've made thousands paper trading with it(with TASR and IPIX). I just want to educate myself with everything to do with the markets. I might be the next failure in trading, or I might ride a Ferrari when I'm 16. Who knows.
Traders don't really use mechanical stops (virtual stops or "mental stops" only)...for so many reasons. A stock may gap down 50 cents, and if you were long and had a stop in you would get hurt when your stop was triggered. The gap down should be read as simply another opportunity to buy more stock WITH the Specialist, who just bought it on the down gap. The all encompassing "tape reading" allows you to trade on the same side as the guy who has been making money for 200 years...does that not make sense? Of course the OTC does not allow for any serious tape reading, nor participation with the "guy" - because there is no centralized market place. Just trying to help... Don
paper trading is the polar opposite of trading with real cash let's put it this way, if Wizetrade (not sure what it is but anyways...) or any other TA or TA tool allowed one to make money, would you agree that hedge funds and traders would flock to it? If so, do you also agree that as more and more people begin using this tool/indicator/whatever, it's 'edge' dissapears? There you go, this is why TA and it's buddies will not work in the long run. You must have a true edge, a simple example is how don and friends trade with the specialist on the opening, this is an edge relying on the fact that 9/10 times the specialist will make away with profits after gapping a stock. In time, specialists will become phased out and this edge will dissapear, but it is more much concrete and based on a structural flaw in the markets; this can not be compared to analysis of the past, technical or fundamental, as the past will not tell you about the future.
Don't bet the farm (or you'll be driving a bike instead of that Ferrari) - if you actually believe that wizecrap would have made you thousands on TASR and IPIX and thus would make you thousands more on everything else it picks out, say goodbye to your college fund. A complete idiot using only a simplistic moving average crossover (which WT essentially is) could have made money following the low float manias like TASR and IPIX - but will get chopped up in the mainstream. Lots of people got on comets like that during the bubble, decided they were genius traders, and then ultimately rode those comets back into the dirt. Knowing when to take profits and/or get out is usually more important than when to get in.
The best lessons you can be told are the ones you learn yourself. Find out daddy's password and start trading in real-time.
I think it's cool he's only 12. Just remember the magic of compound interest. At your age just a little bit of money at a decent interest will make you rich faster then most could dream. Don't dream of the fast cash, only the long term goals and you'll achieve them.
Sorry, but I feel like laughing when I see WizeTrade commercials. Just follow a simple system to huge profitability? Ain't that simple. When I was a kid I read some Wade Cook stuff, and intuitively it didn't make sense. Rolling stock in trading range? They don't tell you what to do if it rolls to zero. Buy stock splits? Sure, probably going with a high momentum stock that is close to topping out. I would advise AGAINST widely publicized systems.