When beginners ask me where to get started, I refer them
here, the first step of which follows:
The first step is to decide what kind of trader you want to be.
- What do you want to accomplish with your trading? Is it recreational? Supplementary income? A part-time job? Do you want to make a living at it? Even the greenest of the green knows whether or not he wants to make a living at it, trade only part time, trade for recreation, trade for the action, trade to have something to talk about with other traders (for whatever reason), trade only long enough to earn money to do or buy X.
- Do you have any idea what sort of trading is most comfortable? Long or intermediate-term trading? Short-term trading? Day-trading? Trend-trading? Scalping? (Note here that a short-term trader, for example, does not become a long-term trader just because his stop was hit and he didn't sell; a long-term trader doesn't become a short-term trader because he chickened out and sold too soon. Each of these approaches is selected deliberately and for thoroughly-considered reasons.) How patient are you? How adventurous? Are you a leader or a follower (most people think they're leaders)?
And so on . . .