Am I a Fool For Wanting To Be a Speculator?

[murray t turtle]

Key words for success in any endeavor: persistence & perseverance.

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Good thing i learned to invest/trade , when single. Jim Roger's wife threw a fit when he wanted to put the money in his fund + not a couch.......AND if i had known how long it took to trade wisely ; i would have invested more+ traded much less 'till i learned much more about trends.Good thing my mom loved me enough to give me a Dave Ramsey book; most public libraries + quite a few private libraries have Dave Ramsey. IF i had to sell TSLAs or buy TSLAs/stock, i would starve........................................................................................LOL But time always always proves IBD founder right; he never bought stuff like DAL, GE, TSLA,.

 

[Pekelo]

I’m a member of WSB and love it but man that place is more toxic than anything.

Sure, but there is a thing called selective reading.

And as compared to ET, they actually post there gains and losses. r/options is pretty good though, way more mature than WSB.

 

[mt2rules]

The more I meditate on this the more i feel that I tried to convince myself that being a speculator would be a meaningful life pursuit...when in reality i think that deep down I hoped it would be an expedient path to wealth. Now that my bubble of naivety has been popped I see what an absurd notion that was. I think this has all been a classic case of "get rich quick" dreaming under the veil or lie that "i want to be a trader because that would bring meaning to my life". Sad really. Not sure where to go from here.

I really do appreciate you all taking the time to comment on this thread it has helped me out.

I'm going to throw my 2 cents in. I don't think you would be thinking about it this much and be part of other trading communities if the only reason you wanted to do it was to get rich quick. You obviously have a major interest in the topic, otherwise you would likely have moved on by this point. I'm not sure if you were originally attempting to day trade or swing trade, but if you were day trading I would recommend moving over to trading on longer time frames while keeping a day job as others have said. I took a shot at trading full-time a couple years ago and heavily underestimated the stress and "mental games" that you play with yourself when you are trying to depend on it to make a steady income.

The biggest thing that has helped me in my trading career is make every decision as mechanical as possible. Trading on gut feelings and intuition is a quick road to ruin imo. Some here like to trade on news and events but I think that is the wrong way to go, especially for new traders. It only takes a few big losses to wreck your confidence and make you start doubting yourself/your methods. The best thing you could do would be to spend your time backtesting well-known edges (trend following in trendy markets, selling volatility when it is likely overpriced, running uncorrelated systems, etc.). You need to know the stats of your system backwards and forwards and know the difference between standard trading losses and abnormal losses that signal you are losing edge or trading in the wrong environment.

One last tip, in my experience the further out you go in time, the more likely you will have an edge. Everyone loves looking at the smaller time frame charts (15m, 1H, 4H) but the weekly and the monthly charts are where the real money is made if you are patient. Best of luck to you on your journey and I hope that you figure out what you want to do.

 

[ironchef]

The biggest thing that has helped me in my trading career is make every decision as mechanical as possible.

That is if your system has a real edge, otherwise you will be losing money mechanically. In the beginning, I mechanically sold covered calls without any rules, because some books said selling OTM options is like printing money, 90+% of the time they expire worthless....

 

[mt2rules]

That is if your system has a real edge, otherwise you will be losing money mechanically. In the beginning, I mechanically sold covered calls without any rules, because some books said selling OTM options is like printing money, 90+% of the time they expire worthless....

In my opinion, you're much better off mechanically losing money than randomly making money based on chance. It would become obvious very quickly that your strategy has no edge and you would move on to something different, hopefully having learned a lesson. It would be much more insidious to be a discretionary trader and think you're making money based on sound methodology only to blow out your account from unforeseen risk.

 

[zghorner]

That is if your system has a real edge, otherwise you will be losing money mechanically. In the beginning, I mechanically sold covered calls without any rules, because some books said selling OTM options is like printing money, 90+% of the time they expire worthless....

I can attribute the vast majority of my losses to naked OTM options.