For the true novices

M

Morpheus

Hi all,

Indeed I have been asleep for a long time...

Until recently I had a very foggy idea of what the stock markets were and how stocks were traded. I knew people made money with that, but having just finished school I was too busy paying my debt.

Through a twist of fate I attended one of those guaranteed-to-get-rich-if-you-pay-3-grand-for-a-workshop seminars. Of course I didn't pay the 3 large, but it was enough to pique my interest.

I ended up reading 3-4 books on investing/trading, and eventually signing up for this site! I've gathered enough to realize that swing trading part-time day trading is for me, but I feel I need to learn more (although I'm gonna HATE waking up at 6 am to catch the market opening).

So any advice on:

books to read
good stock research sites
good news sites
brokers to start with (mind you, I'm in Canada; also I'm gonna have to start small, maybe as small as $500, so low transaction fees are vital)

would be greatly appreciated. Especially the ones that you have used and found useful/essential. Or the ones to stay away from.

(on this note, does anyone know of Jack Carter and his "Secrets Of An Online Trading Mercenary" - it sounds too good to be true - the ad keeps popping up from cbs.marketwatch.com ?)

Thanks and great trading to all.
 
Morpheus,

A couple of things...

Originally posted by Morpheus
it sounds too good to be true -
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Anything you can say this after you should run away from!

I'm gonna HATE waking up at 6 am to catch the market opening
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Then don't become a trader. Many people who love it still suck at it, so if you hate it you will guarantee failure.


books to read
good stock research sites
good news sites
brokers to start with
More...


Do a search on this site for these things, there is plenty of great info here.


I'm gonna have to start small, maybe as small as $500
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Then don't start yet... Wait until you have a decent sized account. If you just want to invest it in something then fine, but you can almost be guaranteed to lose it if you try trading it. Its not worth losing $500 everytime you save it up. Just keep learning while you keep putting money away. I know its hard, and can take years for you to build a decent account, but that's the only way you have a fighting chance. At least you will have plenty of time to educate yourself. This site is a great resource and there are many traders here with lots of experience to help you avoid the big pitfalls of when starting out (the biggest of which is being undercapitalized).

I don't mean to sound discouraging, and if its your dream, then you should go for it, but take your time, the markets will still be here tommorrow.


Good luck,

Kirk
 
$500 with a return of 100% a year. (just a small % do this)
means you made $500 for the year.


Minimum wage is a lot more than that.

Robert tharp
 
Don't try short term trading with the current Canadian brokers. Their fees are too high and their trading platforms are inadequate. Put your $500 into an index mutual fund with a low expense ratio (e.g. TD bank eFunds) Work hard and add as much as you can each month to build it up to a level where trading is credible, say $5,000 - 10,000.

By that time our glacial regulators may have approved Interactive Brokers' registration in Canada and you will be able to trade very small position sizes for $1 each way. Meanwhile, read everything you can about the market "except the get rich quick" offerings.
 
Wow, thanks for the input guys (one of the reasons I joined is because it looked like a decent and friendly community).

Kirk:
So that's that for the get-rich-quick scams - to me, they ceased to exist.
As far as waking up early goes, I was planning on a gradual shift from 8 am (that's what my current job requires) to 6 am. Good side of it is I can look at the markets (or even trade, later on) in the morning and still go to work.

Grabb - thanks for the site - I'll check it out later, I'm at work now.

Robert:
I know, $500 is ridiculously small, but I plan to save 1-200 bucks monthly.
When I hit $2,000 I could probably venture into swing trading - whadaya think Robert? - by then I will have read and paper-traded some.

I'll look into the index fund thing - thanx Duff. What if I use an american broker with lower fees for this?

Anyone here from Canada? What broker are you using?
 
Morpheus, Neo here :)

I dont know if theres some regulation or something but why wouldnt you use Interactive Brokers? Its 1buck/100 shares and its direct access. I think you simply CANNOT beat this!!! Im from Croatia and I opened an acct w. them so I dont see a reason you couldnt trade with em.

500$ really is too small of an account size, trust me, I have 4.5 k (he he , moving upwards) and im still having remarkably hard time trading it. Not to mention that I cant daytrade.

As far as books/sites are concerned, go to daytradingstocks.com as someone said, then StockCharts.com (while theyre free :( ) and Sign up for trial on TradingMarkets.com

Then read, RE_READ everything and print it/save it to PC and then read it some more. You can get thousands of pages of awesome info from theese sites. Thats how did it. No books. As far as Ive heard Tonys books are great, L.B. Raske, Edwards I think Technical analysys or something like that etc. Oh yes, MARK DOUGLAS - TRADING IN THE ZONE --- A must!!! And read it before you read anything else cos this book will put you in the right perspective before you get into TA, MACD, Candles, Gann, Fibo, Mumbo, Jumbo, La, La, la stuff...

Paper trade, watch and when you're ready JUMP IN! Feel free3 to PM me or e mail me if I can help.

Good trading y'all!
Alex
 
For a book I suggest Market Wizards by Jack Schwager. It's all interviews with successful traders and investors, gives you an idea about what goes on inside a successful mind. Also Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by LeFevre. It gives you an education on all the shenanigans that go on behind the scenes ("inside" information "leaks", out-and-out dis-information campaigns, bucket shops, price manipulation, rumors). The book was written 80 years ago but nothings changed.
Neo, congrats.
 
"Im from Croatia and I opened an acct w. them so I dont see a reason you couldnt trade with em. "


Croatia shook off the shackles of the one party socialist state and split up into independent countries. Unfortunately we still have the one party socialist state and a bunch of provinces that seem to think they are independent countries. Between them they create a lot of unnecessary regulations. One of which prevents US brokers from taking Canadian clients.
 
Yo Neo!

Thanks for the pointers, I'll go over them one thing at a time and I'll let you know how I liked them. Thanks for offering to help - I'll take you up on that.

As you can see, Duff (who seems to be Canadian - are you?) knows that American brokers won't take Canadians on - in that case it's the TSE?

Is there no way you can trade on the American markets from within Canada?

Rigel - thanks, I'll look it up.

Now a question for the senior traders - most of whom trade for a living, I assume - how many years before you can give up your day job and make a good living day trading? And how much cap for that?
 
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