17 year old Beginner

Quote from harrytrader:

I have always thought secretly that a teenager has much more chance to get a right start than an already frozen adult brain : now I tell it aloud :)
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I often feel the same way -- the trick (as an adult) is to continually
lubricate your mind... it takes a hell of a lot more work than it
does for a 17 yo but we basically have no choice.
Ironically it can become habitual :)

Compound this with the overall life benefits of keeping your mind
open and it's a win-win.

JT
 
William,

It's good to see that you have some fire in your belly. I suggest you read Market Wizards by Jack Schwager. That ignited the fire 1 1/2 years ago (I'm 20 now, I was in the same boat as you) that is still burning. Do not expect to finish a book in 2-5 days, especially if you're working 60 hours a week. Pitbull by Marty Schwarz is a FUN read. After I read these books I KNEW I was going to be a trader no matter what it takes. Realize that your odds of success are very low. That means you will have to work your ass off, and make many sacrifices. The best advice I can give you.

-Make sacrifices
-Stay in excellent physical shape (keeps you positive, and quick)
-Start with a time frame you are comfortable with (investing, trend trading, swing trading) and work your way down to a shorter time frame (day trading, momentum trading). Do not worry about forcing yourself into a shorter time frame, it is a natural progression.
-Save as much money as you can.
-Discover your own style. Most books I read, I could easily agree with the ideas that matched my personality. It's just like an guitarist who takes the ideas of previous artists of the past and makes them better (i.e. eric clapton)
-Never lose the faith.

Best of luck to you, the first step is the hardest.
 
Quote from iLLywiLLy:

...but the only thing I need are chart-reading skills. That's part of my plan... studying charts....
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for primary chart reading I would suggest reading the following book as well..

Technical Analysis of Stock Trends by Edwards & Magee
 
Hi,

1. Contact me when you are finishing first year university. Just "from ET, almost 2nd year university now" will be enough. ONLY if you follow through on your trading education between now and then.

morgang_finance@yahoo.com

2. The books are fine, but at this stage of your learning, focus on learning how to invent... Hence, focus on the thought processes of the authors, how they innovated, etc. The techniques you might learn directly from these books are going to be only slightly profitable at best.

3. Don't trade in the summer unless your parents are extremely rich. To just paper-trade would be enough.

4. If you are very serious about TRADING (as opposed to sell-side activities), get a good education in 1.math, 2.stats, 3.programming, and 4.finance -- in that order.
 
You asked about style of charting, I'd definitely go w/candlesticks. And I don't mean because of candle "patterns". Many chartist use candlesticks and couldn't care less about "dark cloud cover".

Candlesticks are superior because they are the best visual representation of price action and interaction, as opposed to lines and bar charts. Once you get familiar w/them, you'll appreciate how much info they can convey at a glance. They're especially good when your charting software allows you to color-code them, white candles up, red candles down, for instance, w/an up/down color-coded volume histogram in the bottom pane.

I'd stay away from indicators in the beginning, except maybe for some common moving averages - 20, 50, 200 perhaps. Learn the relationship between price and volume and what determines support and resistance and about accumulation/distribution. Learn to draw trendlines and horizontal support/resistance. Learn to recognize the difference between trends and ranges. Learn the common patterns and, even more importantly, the market reasoning that underlies them. For instance, don't just look at a "double bottom" and see the pattern. Realize that that second bottom is there to shakeout the last of the weak longs so the smarter traders can grab up more of their shares at a bargain right before marking price up.

It's easy to get caught up in info overload. Eventually you should read everything you can get your hands on, but at first study a few books and learn those basics. Then you'll have the knowledge to study other styles and techniques and be able to take only what you need from them and leave the rest.

Harold
 
I don't have time nor the ability for a lengthy bunch of advice so I'll just state a couple of ideas.

It's a good thing that you experienced that loss iin 2001. Better to lose then than with a lot more later. Learning how to lose well- manage your risk- is part of the game.


No one can teach you how to trade, obviously when it comes down to it you'll be relying on your schemes and logic.

Good to have a back up plan. Have more than one goal in life. To make money is not a very honorable thing to solely live for.

You seem capable of reading a lot of books. That's a very good thing because one of the main things that separates you from the masters is a lacl of knowledge. Lock yourself away from the world for a year and read all day. If you do you'll be years ahead fo most traders.

Having a stable basis for reasoning is important. In other words, if you believe in a god, don't use prayer as a strategy. Objectification of yourself, constant introspection, are serious parts of becoming and being a good trader.

Of course some of these above statements are theories, as I too am new to the markets.

Forget luck, use statistics.

Maybe I'll see you at NYU or Penn. I'm applying for entry in fall 2005.


Also, learn about foreign markets and forex and how they affect the US markets. In order to be great you'll need to know quite a lot about every aspect that relates to trading. This isn't as difficult a task as it may seem to be. What else is there to do?
 
hcour - i like how you look at the underlying reasonings. thanks for your advice. very sound.

rowenwood - good advice regarding life in general. i will need it to be a strong trader. very good fundamentals to anything. thank you. yes, i will also be applying for fall 2005. hopefully we by then, we will be much farther on this journey:)
 
You asked about style of charting, I'd definitely go w/candlesticks.

I would echo this for one reason: Other types of charting are generally identicle (save P&F), but lose data (P&F also loses data). Unless there is a point to ignoring data, don't do it, especially while you are learning.

P&F may be useful in simplifying a price series when you are running some specific pattern recognition program, but there are other ways to do the same thing (kernel smoothing, etc), and no reason to get caught up in P&F.

Read academic journals when you get to university, if you can follow them... Or books that summarize recent studies. Your library should have both, or at least give you access to ABI/Inform.

But make sure you get good grades...
 
Quote from iLLywiLLy:



TL - Thanks for your advice. Same words echoed all over ET here. I am planning to read Farley's book but I didnt include it because I think I need a few other primers before I can comprehend Farley. Who knows, maybe or maybe not.
...Please, others, chime in.
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Farley is primer as primer can get.
 
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