Post I just did. The full post is at: http://jamesaltucher.com/2010/11/8-reasons-not-to-daytrade/
But here is the first part:
8 REASONS NOT TO DAYTRADE
November 6th, 2010 | Author: James Altucher | Edit
Everyone wants to be a daytrader. Let me tell you the best days. You get in at 9:25am. You make the trade your system tells you to make at 9:30. And by 9:45, the trade is done, profitable, and youâre done for the day: $1800 richer and happy about it. Even better are those stories of people who took $3000 off of their credit card and â18 months later I had $25,351,011.45 in the bank!!!â The first day I decided I was going to be a fulltime daytrader, on May 18, 2001, I was so excited I couldnât sleep at night. It was unbelievable to me how much money I was going to make.
But its all a lie to yourself. I still occasionally daytrade. And Iâve daytraded for other people. Iâve daytraded for hedge funds and for prop trading firms. Right before I started daytrading, an old-timer who had spent 40 years in the business told me, âDonât do it. Why do you want to be involved with those people.â But I wanted to be âthose peopleâ. I was one of them. I was a TRADER.
Donât do it: Hereâs why:
- Suicide. At some point you will feel suicidal. That doesnât mean you lost all of your money. You might just be having your worst week in 2 or 3 weeks. But for whatever reason you bought when you shouldâve sold and that sent your head spinning and now you need to be talked off the ledge. Iâve talked many people off the ledge in the past 10 years and had to be talked off a few times myself. Its not a pleasant feeling. Why do that to yourself?
- Youâll overeat. Why not? You just put on the trade and the second you did it went against you. So you put on more and it went against you some more. So now you are staring at it and you are feeling bad. Your body needs to feel good. Your body is very short-term in its thinking. Its saying, âyou did something that made me feel bad so now I need a doughnut. I know that will balance the bad feeling so go do it. Hurry.â So you eat a doughnut. The trade goes against you more. Screw it, you eat 5 more doughnuts. Six. Seven. Iâm getting sick even writing this. Eight. Nine. And so on.
- Your eyes go bad. Imagine you have two screens in front of you and thousands of numbers and they are all blinking and changing from green to red to green. Youâre staring at these numbers for thousands of hours over the course of years. I canât read books close to me anymore. The letters all melt together and look like a kaleidoscope. I have to take my glasses off to read them. Although, is that so bad? Maybe I wonât need glasses anymore eventually.
But here is the first part:
8 REASONS NOT TO DAYTRADE
November 6th, 2010 | Author: James Altucher | Edit
Everyone wants to be a daytrader. Let me tell you the best days. You get in at 9:25am. You make the trade your system tells you to make at 9:30. And by 9:45, the trade is done, profitable, and youâre done for the day: $1800 richer and happy about it. Even better are those stories of people who took $3000 off of their credit card and â18 months later I had $25,351,011.45 in the bank!!!â The first day I decided I was going to be a fulltime daytrader, on May 18, 2001, I was so excited I couldnât sleep at night. It was unbelievable to me how much money I was going to make.
But its all a lie to yourself. I still occasionally daytrade. And Iâve daytraded for other people. Iâve daytraded for hedge funds and for prop trading firms. Right before I started daytrading, an old-timer who had spent 40 years in the business told me, âDonât do it. Why do you want to be involved with those people.â But I wanted to be âthose peopleâ. I was one of them. I was a TRADER.
Donât do it: Hereâs why:
- Suicide. At some point you will feel suicidal. That doesnât mean you lost all of your money. You might just be having your worst week in 2 or 3 weeks. But for whatever reason you bought when you shouldâve sold and that sent your head spinning and now you need to be talked off the ledge. Iâve talked many people off the ledge in the past 10 years and had to be talked off a few times myself. Its not a pleasant feeling. Why do that to yourself?
- Youâll overeat. Why not? You just put on the trade and the second you did it went against you. So you put on more and it went against you some more. So now you are staring at it and you are feeling bad. Your body needs to feel good. Your body is very short-term in its thinking. Its saying, âyou did something that made me feel bad so now I need a doughnut. I know that will balance the bad feeling so go do it. Hurry.â So you eat a doughnut. The trade goes against you more. Screw it, you eat 5 more doughnuts. Six. Seven. Iâm getting sick even writing this. Eight. Nine. And so on.
- Your eyes go bad. Imagine you have two screens in front of you and thousands of numbers and they are all blinking and changing from green to red to green. Youâre staring at these numbers for thousands of hours over the course of years. I canât read books close to me anymore. The letters all melt together and look like a kaleidoscope. I have to take my glasses off to read them. Although, is that so bad? Maybe I wonât need glasses anymore eventually.
?