Blew up a $10k account, still interested. Am I too old/dumb/naive/in the wrong location?

[Handle123]

Too old?, never, I'm 63. Dumb or naïve? Well...I don't know. You sound a little naïve. Sounds like you were trading at the traveling carnival with no plan. Being serious here. You should have gone "slower", not "faster" in the trading.

WOW, lol Flash Gordon, I remember seeing the wire when they had space ship going some where, high tech. I doubt many here who ever saw Flash Gordon.

 

[Maverick74]

If you are young and want to work for a hedgefund, don't do it by building a track record on a small account. That will take you forever and most likely no one will take it seriously. Instead build the skills and show the aptitude that a hedgefund would desire and get a job as a junior on a desk. The easiest way to do this is to start from the research side. You have a higher chance of becoming a PM, a higher chance of running a larger book, and a higher chance of making more money in the short and long run.

If your goal is to just trade for yourself, then be patient and learn. You will have decades ahead of you to make money *if you don't keep blowing up your account.*

I absolutely concur. NOBODY cares about a track record if you want to work for a firm. They care about your skills. Skills can be quantified. Track records cannot be. They are way too random. Nobody randomly gets a masters degree. Or randomly learns to program in R. These are hard skills. Hard skills are what you need to get hired. It's never too late to go back to school. It's never too late to take night classes. Hell you can take all these courses for free through MOOCs. Just do it already. Build hard skills.

 

[theblacktrades]

If you are young and want to work for a hedgefund, don't do it by building a track record on a small account. That will take you forever and most likely no one will take it seriously. Instead build the skills and show the aptitude that a hedgefund would desire and get a job as a junior on a desk. The easiest way to do this is to start from the research side. You have a higher chance of becoming a PM, a higher chance of running a larger book, and a higher chance of making more money in the short and long run.

If your goal is to just trade for yourself, then be patient and learn. You will have decades ahead of you to make money *if you don't keep blowing up your account.

Being a PM would be the long term goal I'd say, rather than just trading my own account. Big part of why I'm taking CFA at the moment as I'm hoping that will help me make the move over to buy side, or at least sell side research for a few years before landing a HF gig. Thing is there aren't exactly a lot of hedge funds in NZ...or sell side research and my current job is doing my head in. Pays ok but there's more to life (or at least, I want more). Is it worth moving somewhere and trying to get into research there? Aware larger places=more jobs=more competition so I'm not sure if that's a winner either.

I do like to hedge my bets (which I'm aware is not always the best strategy), hence it's also appealing to continue down the 'trade for myself' route as well as trying to land a junior job at a HF whilst keeping my day job to pay the bills. Is that spreading myself too thin?

 

[Piptaker]

I'll try to make this quick. Live in NZ so CFDs are a thing. Used to sim trade when I was younger which worked out quite well, moved that to a small account ($600) in third year at uni 2012, turned that into $1500 or so over the course of 9 months before summer came and I had to drain my account to pay some bills.

Opened up a new account this time last year with $10k, went OK but around mid-year got really stressed with work and CFA study and decided that I needed to multiply my account hugely or else no one was ever going to take me seriously (in terms of turning this into a full-time gig at a firm) so risk management went out the window. Instead of my usual 1-2% per trade (hard limit on 2) I was putting 6-8 up on each trade, few went astray, balance went down, risk went up, you know the rest. Pulled the pin at $3k.

Most profitable on equity market indices, S&P500 (cash rather than futures, spreads were 0.2 better) in particular. However I did dabble in oil (brent and WTI), gold and currencies, especially during the final month, which as you'd expect weren't profitable overall.Now I've got to the end of the year I am really considering my options, which broadly are:
Start up account again (same sorta $10k is manageable financially) and trade whilst still working full time (and level III in June) with a view to somehow leveraging this into a full-time gig.
Move somewhere for a few months and try and get a foot in somewhere (London, singapore, hong kong?? No idea on this).
Register for Topstep trader and get funded that way.

Ultimately the aim would be to work for a prop firm or on HF desk as I get a lot out of other people's experience and advice in general, and I'm sure the same would apply here.

I'm new to this forum having only found it in the past month so hopefully I haven't made any faux pas in creating this. Appreciate any and all advice. Can probably dig up some stats somewhere from my old accounts but not sure how relevant that is given the size. Apologies for the length.

Going by your name big all blacks fan eh? Looks like your focus ended in the wrong place, once you start concentrating on chasing money and profits it's usually a very slippy slope down to blowing your account and you probably ended up chasing price all over the place too... Choose a few instruments and stick with them and get your focus back on your process on the bigger time frames. With a small basket of currencies for example you will have more than enough opportunities on the 4hr tf to keep you busy and grow your account. Forget about how much money you want or should be making and get your process in order first.

 

[theblacktrades]

Going by your name big all blacks fan eh? Looks like your focus ended in the wrong place, once you start concentrating on chasing money and profits it's usually a very slippy slope down to blowing your account and you probably ended up chasing price all over the place too... Choose a few instruments and stick with them and get your focus back on your process on the bigger time frames. With a small basket of currencies for example you will have more than enough opportunities on the 4hr tf to keep you busy and grow your account. Forget about how much money you want or should be making and get your process in order first.

Actually a play on The Black Keys, of which I'm a big fan. AB's ain't bad though, wouldn't consider myself a fan on an NZ scale, but internationally I imagine that's what I'd fall under. Yeah such a rookie move getting focused on the end game. Just like in sport, you focus on getting the little things right and focus on the here and now, not on what it will mean/feel like when you win. Lost sight of that completely. That was an important lesson that I wish I'd learnt a little cheaper

 

[Piptaker]

Actually a play on The Black Keys, of which I'm a big fan. AB's ain't bad though, wouldn't consider myself a fan on an NZ scale, but internationally I imagine that's what I'd fall under. Yeah such a rookie move getting focused on the end game. Just like in sport, you focus on getting the little things right and focus on the here and now, not on what it will mean/feel like when you win. Lost sight of that completely. That was an important lesson that I wish I'd learnt a little cheaper

Ahh Black keys yeah they're good, I'm an nrl guy myself with the rugby

Those lessons do come at a price. Remember profit is only the result of having your house in order.

 

[Q3D]

You are a troll so this will be my only reply to you.

There will always be opportunities for retail traders to make money in the markets. The strategies, asset classes, and opportunities might change, but there will always be mispricings that retail traders can take advantage of. Markets aren't efficient; they are just really competitive.

No, you cannot assume that there "will always be opportunities" or that i am a "troll", taking advantage of price discrepancies requires an advantage in PRICING AND TIMING. These two variables are facing an inexorable convergence with the evolution of high-frequency trading and now quantum computing.

 

[profitlocker]

Q3D

You sound like a total beat-off and you make trading out to be way more complicated than it is. It's definitely hard, but the mechanics are simple once you get a read on it. Markets go up, down, or sideways. No computer will ever change that. Find volatility (which isn't that hard) and indulge yourself in it. You need to understand momentum and form a plan around it. Momentum will always exist.

 

[Q3D]

Q3D

You sound like a total beat-off and you make trading out to be way more complicated than it is. It's definitely hard, but the mechanics are simple once you get a read on it. Markets go up, down, or sideways. No computer will ever change that. Find volatility (which isn't that hard) and indulge yourself in it. You need to understand momentum and form a plan around it. Momentum will always exist.

Incorrect. Momentum is determined by mass and velocity, HFT/quantum trading algorithms will/do have control over both variables at an increasing rate until extinction of retail traders becomes a commonly accepted truth.

 

[cjbuckley4]

@Q3D first of all, quant trading is short for quantitative trading, not quantum trading. Quantum computing, mass, velocity...discretionary trading isn't physics class. You're misleading people with scare tactics. You make high frequency traders out to be some warlocks who control markets with some magical mechanisms that you fail to cite. Don't try to scare people off by referencing something you clearly don't understand. We're just modern day specialists as far as you and other discretionary traders should be concerned.