Does this count as trading?

Once upon a time, when I was a young I worked on dailys...

played very hard and fast...

I thought I was playing the patterns. :) It was fun and nice. I started with 10 grand, almost like Larry... I did not make a million, but made money like crazy.

Knowledge was of course - 0, but I had very high opinions about my abilities.... I could open a position and go to the meeting... came back from the meeting, close the position, making a few grand... then open another one after the break and make a couple of grands more.

Access to a computer was not always available, so I called my wife, she was doing orders. Wife used to call me at work when I was busy and I by the memory, remembering the chart of Microsoft (for example), told her to put short order. She did... after 2 hours calling me back saying it fell - I would tell her where to reverse a position... she would make a profit again...

My boss was ready to release me from work and let me only trade (mine and his money).

I traded almost daily: only stocks. I remember trading for a while one Templeton Russian closed-end fund (TRF).. made a lot of money on it, about 50 grand in a month.

There were of course losses, big losses, but oddly enough for some reason I was not pissed or afraid... I should have...

In short, after about a year I have had an account in the region of 300K - I thought I was God, and others thought so too about me.

I told the boss to go f@ck himself, quit the job. Became a daytrader and only then I realized that I am not God... the others realized that about me too and quite soon... :)

After that began the education of the speculator.
 
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Autodidact said:
Good suggestion, another alternative is to have a working wife take care of basic needs with her salary.
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At some point wives are unlike husbands, we could be the only breadwinner for decades, but women only have so much within them to be working even though trading is very stressful and working hard to make rent, wives don't always look at it as work, LOL.
 
Up to this point at least, a record may have been set . I believe this is the first thread of this sort on ET that I have read where every bit of advice given is good advice! Maybe this thread should end here and go to the Hall of Fame.
 
These are the responses I am looking for. My situation...actually have family including kids. Wife will bring in income
Michel85 said:
working wife is always the best decision:) lol
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and that is what i've got. i have a low risk threshold and i want to at least give this a try before i die. if it can turn into a long term deal, great; if not, at least i know i tried and failed. i'm not in it to make a killing.

the purpose of this post was to see if my history of trading these small lots is any indication of how i would do if i were to do this full time. it seems like the general consensus is not quite.
 
niteflite said:
I've worked a regular full time non-trading office job for all of my life after undergrad. On the side i have executed some trades..sometimes round trips on the same day. Trading stuff like spy, vti, as well as individual stocks. The p/l were small....like $100 to $200 per pair of trades for example. I'd trade $10,000 worth of spy for example and would pocket $100 and joke that i made money for dinner. I've been doing this off and on for several years and have succeeded coming out on top 80% of the time or so.

I'm in a position where income from my FT job could come to a halt and we'd still be ok. Should i consider trading full time? Should i at least try it out for a few months? 3-6 months perhaps? I've been thinking about trying this for a very long time.
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No. Thank you for your time.
 
niteflite said:
These are the responses I am looking for. My situation...actually have family including kids. Wife will bring in income


and that is what i've got. i have a low risk threshold and i want to at least give this a try before i die. if it can turn into a long term deal, great; if not, at least i know i tried and failed. i'm not in it to make a killing.

the purpose of this post was to see if my history of trading these small lots is any indication of how i would do if i were to do this full time. it seems like the general consensus is not quite.
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Odds are you won't do aswell, but you might beat the odds and do better, there is only 1 way to find out.

Crack it long term and well enough and you can retire, odds are way better than winning the lottery, for a normal poor working person it's about the only legal option to wealth really.
 
Turveyd said:
Odds are you won't do aswell, but you might beat the odds and do better, there is only 1 way to find out.

Crack it long term and well enough and you can retire, odds are way better than winning the lottery, for a normal poor working person it's about the only legal option to wealth really.
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good enough. how do i get started. can i call a reputable firm....hold bros perhaps and tell them i want to trade with them?
 
niteflite said:
good enough. how do i get started. can i call a reputable firm....hold bros perhaps and tell them i want to trade with them?
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If your account your making the $100 area on is still intact, just do that 2 - 4 times per day, increase your trade sizes as the account grows and hey presto no need for a firm!

Putting 3 months money to 1 side to cover living expenses ( while looking for a job ), how much have you got left to trade with ??
 
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