Do you encourage your children to trade?

Originally posted by nasdaqmadness
My 11 year old son negotiated his share of the take with me. On days that he closes a trade for me he gets 10% of net profits. Some days he has sat there for nearly the entire day. When I come home he likes to show me on a 5 min chart the days action and what I missed. He thinks trading is pretty easy. after closing a long position his comment is usually "Dad why don't you short this thing now?" Or after covering a short he has made the comment "if you picked the right time to cover it must be the right time to go long the same stock." Its hard to argue with his logic. I would like to set him up with a trading simulator, he would probably out trade me. (Which by the way would be pretty easy). He has no fear at all and from playing video games so much he can watch alot of action before mental over load sets in. I hate to think of trading against this new breed of super trading kids. :D
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Very interesting. I'm sure he thinks it's easy and has no fear - it's not his money he's trading (and therefore worried about losing). Like everyone says, psychology is a huge part of the game. Since he's got that big part licked, all he has to concentrate on is the trading skills. Of course, all of this is at least partially nullified if you charge him 10% for each losing trade.

Has he read Rem. of a Stock Operator? Some of his thoughts sound a lot like concepts from that book.
 
My son has not read any trading books yet. He does like to read but if there is not swords or weapons involved he gets bored. He just sees trading as a big computer battle. He would like it alot more if there were sounds involved with the trading system. maybe an explosion now and then or gun fire on the small trades. Also electronic connections attached to your wrists so that you would feel pain if the battle was lost. I think that last one would do us all some good. :)
 
The fearlessness of children is wonderful. It comes from a wonderful naivety (sp.) that we all miss sometimes. There is such a spiritual message behind the posts of dad's whose kids actually help trade. But I won't go there now.

Trading is fun for me, although sphincter-tightening at times...but trading as a child sees it would be wonderful.
 
Originally posted by nasdaqmadness
My son has not read any trading books yet. He does like to read but if there is not swords or weapons involved he gets bored.
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Sounds just like my son!!!! (God bless his nasty little soul!). But I bet your son is younger, so he has an excuse.

My boy likes to read a lot too, especially about weapons. He went off the deep end when they took "THE ANARCHIST'S COOKBOOK" off the internet. Hasn't been the same since.


MrSubs' Mom
 
>>My son has not read any trading books yet.

Just curious. If I remember correctly, Livermore/Livingston often brought up points in Rem. of a Stock Operator about if he felt sure enough to cover, then why shouldn't he feel sure enough to go long (or something like that)?

>>He would like it alot more if there were
>>sounds involved with the trading system.
>>maybe an explosion now and then or gun fire
>>on the small trades. Also electronic
>>connections attached to your wrists so
>>that you would feel pain if the battle
>>was lost.

Now that would be interesting and I imagine some of the members around here could do it. There's another thread here at ET about programming musical notes to certain market actions and how it sounds more like music than noise.

>>but trading as a child sees it would
>>be wonderful.

In some respects, absolutely. The older I get, the more I think about the old saying that youth is wasted on the young. Maybe I'm just jealous. :)
 
Originally posted by inandlong
Again, as before... I will teach my children what I know and encourage them to trade for a living.

Your thoughts please!
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I do too. My daughter is in business with me already. Never pushed her too much though.
In the beginning she was not interested. As more she was familiar with corporate reality, started turning around, so now we are in the same boat.
The other fellow is now 14 months, so he has ways to go.
 
Jesse Livermore started trading at about 15. He was a millionaire by about 21 I think. Thats at the turn of the century.

Buffet started investing at about 15.

It pays to start young.

Kids learn things much easier at that age. I have been teaching my 5 year old nephew karate for about 2 years. He will be black belt level by the age of 8. God help any kid thaat picks on him in high school.

They can assimilate much more information, so they learn quicker. I say teach, but teach them right.

Runningbear
 
Although my 11 year old son is not all that interested in trading he loves trying to beat the system. He really does get it! Last night he comes into my bedroom well after he should have been sleeping and makes this statement. " Dad when you are trying to short a stock but there is no up tick why don't you just use 2 different computers (accounts) and bid up for just a few shares then your short sale would go through." I told him that trick is probably used alot. I think that learning trading at a young age (when their brains are still like a sponge) would give you the ability to grasp alot including intricate option strategies and really dissect the whole market. Something I am really struggling to do.
 
But I was introduced at a very young age to investing, financials, etc.

I can remember going to the library with my grandfather and pouring through Valueline reports on various companies. This was back in the early to mid 80's when the Smurfs were popular and New Kids on the Block were the N'sych of their day.

At that time, the people at the exchanges had a much larger advantage than the common investor who dealt through a broker, paying enormous commissions and having no real-time access to information like we do today with the internet.

My first stock purchase was 40 shares of DELL for $80 in commission through Dean Witter. I bought it because I wanted to own a piece of a company and it gave me the greatest feeling, even if I did get ripped off on the commissions.

If I ever have kids, I will let them choose what they want to do, but hopefully by that point I will have a few plasma wall panels and LCD monitors all over the place and the cool gizmos alone would captivate his or her intrique.

I'm upset my grandfather still isn't around today, because he really would have loved how powerful the internet has become. We can now click a button and have an order reach an exchange at the speed of light (minus latency) and that puts us only a sliver behind the advantage they have being on the floor.

My goal is to continue researching computer technology and exploit, in any way I can, the power of a computer to become a super-trader.

aphie
 
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