24 single looking to go full time into day trading

ashatet · Jul 18, 2009

depends on how good you are in academics. If you are good, take classes in county college for cheap, transfer credits to a decent undergrad school, work hard, take a lot of maths classes, and complete a bachelor degree in math or economics or finance or computing, whatever works for you.

Then get a real job and start making money at the corporate world, and now is the time to start trading part time to see if you have it in you. Then take it from there.

Quote from contro:

I am 24 single, still live at home with parents. I own my own computer business though the money I get from it is not enough for me to go fulltime into running it. I have an e*trade account and I have a small amount of stock in Intel AMD, GE, WOR, BAC, and MDRNA and by small i mean like 10-20 shares in them 40 in GE enrolled in a DRIP. I have seen all the stocks I have purchased go down from the price I paid for them. I have signed up for an account with http://www.treasurydirect.gov/tdhome.htm but have no money in it yet.

I am in the process of learning options and I am having a difficult time learning it sort of I mean I understand it somewhat but I just find some of the things confusing.
I have been to Investopedia.com and http://education.optionseducation.org/.

I think I really want to go into day trading, I dont have much saved up aside from the amount of money I have been putting from my paychecks at my day job into my e*trade account usually $200-$300 every two weeks.

So my question is should I go into it, should I stick to what I am doing? Any guides you can provide me with or advice on what I should do?

Kicking · Jul 18, 2009

The OP looks sounds like an immature teenager coming right out of the 90's, daytrading stock is not where you make a career nowadays especially during a bear market.

Also a word of caution: once you get into trading full time, you will never be able to get a decent job again. You will be a pariah for society. Worse than a felon. Felons get jobs because they have social workers working for them , failed traders (i.e. all those who don't make millions in a few years, 99.9% of all) become pariahs.

TraderZones · Jul 19, 2009

Quote from Kicking:

The OP looks sounds like an immature teenager coming right out of the 90's, daytrading stock is not where you make a career nowadays especially during a bear market.

Also a word of caution: once you get into trading full time, you will never be able to get a decent job again. You will be a pariah for society. Worse than a felon. Felons get jobs because they have social workers working for them , failed traders (i.e. all those who don't make millions in a few years, 99.9% of all) become pariahs.

Depends on how you write your resume. Maybe this is ONE argument for having your own corporation. Then, you were just an "employee", working for a financial services company. Throw in a decent looking website and an 800/888 number...

Surdo · Jul 19, 2009

Quote from Kicking:

The OP looks sounds like an immature teenager coming right out of the 90's, daytrading stock is not where you make a career nowadays especially during a bear market.

Also a word of caution: once you get into trading full time, you will never be able to get a decent job again. You will be a pariah for society. Worse than a felon. Felons get jobs because they have social workers working for them , failed traders (i.e. all those who don't make millions in a few years, 99.9% of all) become pariahs.

Have you been hanging around with crgarcia?

acrapolis · Jul 20, 2009

Quote from jack hershey:

Successful traders trade size. They trade trends with good timing.

Why have you never traded then Jack? Do you just prefer the theoretical side of it?

1flyfisher · Jul 20, 2009

For the original poster.

Get your education.
Consider getting a degree in accounting, finance, economics, business admin/Finance MBA???? ....something that will help you develop some skills that will perhaps lend themselves towards trading. Such as accounting or economics as being able to analyze financial statements and having a solid understanding and insight into the overall economy has been quite invaluable to my success. I have found my education to be invaluable to my success.
I obtained an economics and accounting B.A. while trading my way through my BA and paying for my university education in the early 80's and also a Masters in Taxation as I was interested in obtaining my CPA and a Law Degree and going into Corporate Law. I didn't start out wanting to be a trader. I wanted a CPA and Law degree and practicing corp law. Trading worked out and I found it lucrative and liked it and decided I didn't need to go into corp law.
Trading/Investing worked out for me and 30 years later I am quite happy I obtained my education in economics and accounting as I would not have succeeded as a trader without that knowledge.

You mentioned you were having difficulty grasping financial concepts, (Options). I feel it takes a well rounded ability in a variety of areas to succeed and top notch analytical skills.
Most fail because the do not have the analytical skills, intelligence and ability to trade. Not everyone can be a trader. Actually very very few can do it well.
Good Luck.

1flyfisher · Jul 20, 2009

I have traded for 30 years. Trading on my resume has not been a negative. It is a major portion and bulk of my resume. I explain my financial analysis skills/work and technical analysis skills/work and my economics skills/work/studies.
I have corporations calling ME for consulting work. Over the last many years I have done business consulting for major corporations in areas of finance, tax law, real estate consulting, etc.
Trading is not a negative if you are successful and the corporations interested in you are aware of your skills and abilities.

Quote from Kicking:

The OP looks sounds like an immature teenager coming right out of the 90's, daytrading stock is not where you make a career nowadays especially during a bear market.

Also a word of caution: once you get into trading full time, you will never be able to get a decent job again. You will be a pariah for society. Worse than a felon. Felons get jobs because they have social workers working for them , failed traders (i.e. all those who don't make millions in a few years, 99.9% of all) become pariahs.

cornelius · Jul 20, 2009

Start taking some classes on trading. Read all the books you can on trading. Learn how to read graphs and financials. Do some paper trading and when you are comfortable start trading with real money. Start with $30,000 and open an account to start daytrading stocks. After you free $5000 into the market you cannot trade stocks anymore. Get into futures and Currencies and free the rest of the money into these markets. Now you may feel suicidal and you start saving money again. You get into trading again and you free some more money into the market. Now youve probably started researching the most painless suicide method. You start saving again. Now your personality and mentality has completely changed. You dont care if you lose everything because now you are not even scared of death. You are now the one taking money from those beginners that have taken all those classes and read all those books.

limitupmike · Jul 20, 2009

lol.. 1 flyfischer if you have been trading successfully for 30 years why in the heck do you even need a resume... lol. I ahve been successfully trading for ten years and i will never need to be employed by anyone..ever no matter where i live.. too funny.

aegis · Jul 20, 2009

Quote from 1flyfisher:

For the original poster.

Get your education.
Consider getting a degree in accounting, finance, economics, business admin/Finance MBA???? ....something that will help you develop some skills that will perhaps lend themselves towards trading. Such as accounting or economics as being able to analyze financial statements and having a solid understanding and insight into the overall economy has been quite invaluable to my success. I have found my education to be invaluable to my success.
I obtained an economics and accounting B.A. while trading my way through my BA and paying for my university education in the early 80's and also a Masters in Taxation as I was interested in obtaining my CPA and a Law Degree and going into Corporate Law. I didn't start out wanting to be a trader. I wanted a CPA and Law degree and practicing corp law. Trading worked out and I found it lucrative and liked it and decided I didn't need to go into corp law.

I have a BS in Business Admin and I'm pursuing a Masters in Accountancy. Not one thing I learned from college helped me become a better trader with the exception of a couple statistics/quant analysis courses.

Someone mentioned earlier in this thread that you should only pursue a degree if it will lead to some type of professional certification (RN, PE, CPA, etc.). I have to agree. You need to have a plan A, B, and C in place. College should be your plan C in case A and B don't work out.