Engineer looking to make a career change into trading (PART II)

sneakoner · May 18, 2011

This is an update to my original thread:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=219895&perpage=6&pagenumber=1

Cliffs of my original thread:
- I'm an engineer who wanted to go into day trading at a prop firm
- ET'ers convinced me it is not worth it

Now I've decided to keep my day job for the time being. I have quite a bit of free time at my engineering job and I've been using it to read as many books as I can and learn as much as I can. Right now I'm paper trading the daily and weekly charts using a simple MACD crossover indicator in conjunction with EMA's. Still too early to tell if its profitable enough to go live.

My goal in life is to find a career path that I have a passion for and can focus all of my energy on. Secondary goal is to make money. Third goal is freedom and autonomy. Trading allows me to reach all three goals.

The following is my plan:

- Continue to read as many books and threads as I can
- Familiarize myself with a number of indicators to use
- Paper trade until I feel comfortable going live
- Go live with a small account to gain a feel for the psychology of trading that everybody seems to be talking about

I just wanted to get some feedback from my fellow ET'rs. The responses I got from my original thread were extremely helpful in keeping me focused and on track. I just want to make sure I'm heading down the right path and not making newbie mistakes.

Thanks in advance.

gnode · May 23, 2011

Do what I do. Save as much money as you can. Put it all in the market. Trade when you can at work.

Also, look at setting up trades that can last at least a few days or weeks at a time so it doesn't interfere with your work.

I basically have my start page set to finance.google.com and whenever I open a browser I just take a 2 second glance at the prices of all my underlying and know whether or not I might need to make an adjustment.

fjpenney · May 23, 2011

You may want to consider starting a "test" system on Collective2.com. The system would be private so only you see the results. Collective2 provides very good performance stats on your trading.

nukethewhales31 · May 23, 2011

Quote from sneakoner:

Right now I'm paper trading the daily and weekly charts using a simple MACD crossover indicator in conjunction with EMA's. Still too early to tell if its profitable enough to go live.

My goal in life is to find a career path that I have a passion for and can focus all of my energy on. Secondary goal is to make money. Third goal is freedom and autonomy. Trading allows me to reach all three goals.

your passionate about placing orders when squiggly lines cross other squiggly lines? thats the career you have passion for?

lindq · May 23, 2011

Quote from sneakoner:

I just want to make sure I'm heading down the right path and not making newbie mistakes.

Thanks in advance.

Invest in software that will permit you to backtest. An added plus if it will also let you playback the daily session so you can watch intraday price action as though it was in real time. Don't trade live until you can make money in simulation. That alone will keep you busy for a couple years. Seriously.

psytrade · May 23, 2011

Quote from nukethewhales31:

your passionate about placing orders when squiggly lines cross other squiggly lines? thats the career you have passion for?

Hahaha!.. classic

Magic8 · May 23, 2011

Take your salary, calculate how much capital you would need to replace it.

For me, over 15 years... I've banked at least $1 million in total salary.

Minus my job... let's say at a constant 15% return for the past 15 years...

I would need $6.7 million. Even more, if you count down years.

You got $6.7 million?

You think you are 'only' going to 'work' 40 hours a week, trading?

Probably not.

sonoma · May 23, 2011

Quote from lindq:

Invest in software that will permit you to backtest. An added plus if it will also let you playback the daily session so you can watch intraday price action as though it was in real time. Don't trade live until you can make money in simulation. That alone will keep you busy for a couple years. Seriously.

+1.

Don't even think of substituting trading for your daytime job until you can trade on paper through all kinds of what-if scenarios. Unless you're financially independent :eek:

sneakoner · May 23, 2011

Quote from gnode:

Do what I do. Save as much money as you can. Put it all in the market. Trade when you can at work.

Also, look at setting up trades that can last at least a few days or weeks at a time so it doesn't interfere with your work.

I basically have my start page set to finance.google.com and whenever I open a browser I just take a 2 second glance at the prices of all my underlying and know whether or not I might need to make an adjustment.

I'm currently paper trading and analyzing charts at work right now (the dailys & the weekly's). I'm always on stockcharts.com and elitetrader. I just started looking into stockfetcher.com.

Soon I will open an account with IB once I feel comfortable paper trading.

sneakoner · May 23, 2011

Quote from nukethewhales31:

your passionate about placing orders when squiggly lines cross other squiggly lines? thats the career you have passion for?

I'm passionate about doing something that will make me independent and wealthy over the long run.

I decided against medical school since I didn't take the necessary pre-requisite courses in college.

Law school doesn't interest me. I began studying for the LSATs and said "F" this.

I got rejected from Business Schools I wanted to get into.

I have passion and energy and I need to focus on something that can be financially rewarding. I don't have any small business ideas at the moment. Trading fits everything I'm looking for.

Low barrier to entry, I have sufficient start-up capital, tons of work to be done in order to be successful.