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Trading For a Living by Alexander Elder. It's on here under Books. Great book, but I just have one question for your friend. Is he wanting to trade SO THAT he can retire? or is he wanting to trade separately from his desire to retire? If it's the former, I would strongly advise against it. Human...

I'm one of the few small account traders that is successful. The only information I know of that I have that others don't have is money management. If you toss a coin you have a 50/50 chance of being right. So if you do that on a game that costs $1 to play and gives you $10 per win, it's near...

No. Famine is usually caused by a lack of rain or crop production. The dollar doesn't have power over the weather. :p

MTE is right. The reason they gradually sell off is because of the relationship between the massive amount of shares they own and the limited number of people that are interested in purchasing shares at that price. Take a look at May 6, 2010 to see what happens when large accounts sell too much...

He's probably right about this. I've looked for some time as well. It's just not out there. But you could try these 2x ETF's: SSO (S&P), QLD (NASDAQ), DDM (DOW).

I'd like to take a look on my own charts. What stock are you holding?

So this morning when I woke up to check on my positions, I tried to log into my broker account and for some reason the website was down. I had a small panic. But not to worry, they have broker assisted trading. I picked up the phone to call. Busy tone. Five minutes later, same thing. Dow is...

I recommend blogging or journaling. I trade best when I write my plan down before I open the position. When I write, I write as if I'm writing to an audience. This is the important part. Writing with the belief that someone will read it forces me to explain my reasoning and often times makes...

I don't want to drag this on much longer, but the point of my post was not to present every factor that goes into risk limits. Rather it was to highlight that putting your whole account into a trade is not the same as "risking" your whole account. I just wanted to ensure that he was aware of...

Don't be so freaking literal. I think everyone understands the possibility of gaps. Most of all, someone who uses stops.

No, you need more reward. Why would your average Risk/Reward be 2:1? It seems you should be looking for either less risk with same reward, or same risk with greater reward. I never even take a trade that has an RR of less than 3. Most of mine are 12 or better. Risk 0.17% gain 2% with stocks...

Here's a screenshot from a paper I wrote on the subject. The issue is that, even with a 99.99% probability of winning, you still have that 1 in 10000 chance of losing. And when you do, you'll have to make up whatever you lost. So, even at those odds, I would never risk 100%. Or else every...

The fast movement we saw upward on Friday afternoon was characteristic of a "Price shock." That's when a few large accounts make sizeable purchases and there are no longer enough sellers to absorb the purchases. The fact that it happened means that they (the large accounts) see something we...

Excitement or profitability. You choose. I've never known anyone to have both for very long.

Yes. I used to aim for 2%, but with options that's near impossible without trading very small positions. Generally I aim for a loss of about $20 per option contract (representing 40 cents of movement on the underlying stock at a .5 delta). Risk per contract fluctuates depending on volatility...

80%! That's phenominal. I remember the days when I used to lose like that on my $500 practice account. It was still emotionally devastating regardless of the fact that I only lost hundreds at a time. But I eventually learned that a 5% loss with a second attempt the next day or two days later...

Read Rome's history, as well as Greece and possibly even Babylon. They, along with America, have the eagle as their national symbol and were, in their day, world super-powers. They all have the same history. And we're tracking right along like a storybook. In short, 200+ years of democracy, a...

The dollar was originally made as a certificate which guaranteed it could be exchanged for its written value in gold. A few hundred years later, the growing US government began printing paper money for the sake of printing paper money, and, even though it still indicates that it has value, the...

You really don't know that. Sure it's rare, but that was my road. People do succeed without a mentor. Anyway, I think there is wisdom in limiting losses, starting small, trying to be humble, etc. But the truth is, I think getting severely beat up is undervalued. It's likely that you'll...

I got one just like that about 3 years ago. If you get into swing trading the problem goes away. I make a day trade every time I lose (because a stop kicks me out), but most of my winning trades are 2 days or more. There are plenty of big moves out there. Just back up and look at a 20 day...