For the true novices

Morpheus,

3 things. You cannot day trade with $500. Period. To make it you need to have at least $100,000 to survive the intial phase of the learning curve. If you want to do this right, save up $20K and go to a proprietary trading firm and trade their capital while you live on the 20K savings, by 6 months' time you should start to be profitable, you can make up whatever you spent the last 6 months, another 2 month you can start to make real money.

Of course, you CANNOT do this part time to make it worthwhile. You have to devote yourself to this and this alone to make it work.

And finally, paper trading is a waste of time and effort. You WON'T learn anything from paper trading, all it will do is give you false sense of confidence that you don't really need. Becuase when you trade real money it is a whole new ball game, even with 100 shares.

Just my 2c
 
I am Canadian and you can try to trade American markets from Canada. However, for reasons that I explained before, current Canadian brokers are impractical for short-term trading any market, Canadian or American.

Regarding the suggestion of going to a proprietary trading firm, there currently are none in Canada, although registration of two or three is in the works according to Don Bright. They will be in Toronto. As this may be perceived as yet another intrusion by nasty Americans into the oligarchical domain of the bank-owned domestic brokerage industry, God knows how long registration of them will take.

My advice is to forget about trading for at least 2 or 3 years and educate yourself on the markets. Neo has goven you a very good list to start with. Contrary to another opinion, I do not think that paper trading is useless. If you can't paper trade profitably you don't have a hope in Hell in the real markets, but just because you can doesn't necessarily mean that you will be successful, as then the psychological factors come into play
 
Thanx Stockkbroker, that all sounds great but it seems that there aren't any proprietary trading firms up here in Canada. Even if fate smiles on us, it'll be Toronto not Vancouver.

So I'm gonna have to figure out a different way. If Neo is able to swing trade with 4.5k, I should be able to do the same in about a year or so. And do lots of reading till then.

And paper trading, I think it's better than nothing too, at least for swing trading. But I agree that throwing money into the game makes a world of a difference.

Dufferdon, what broker do you use then? What about etrade Canada?
 
Dufferdon,

I read the "Day trading in Canada" thread and it seems that the situation is indeed grim for us until a firm like IB gets approval.
I'll keep an eye on that thread for updates.
 
Morpheus; Trade first perhaps-Market Makers EDGE book by Joshua Lukeman...Dr. V Tharp s books,W. O'Neill sbooks,Alan Farley s Master Swing Trader...Study,study,study these book trades and candlecharts because much of your competition has studied.We like to study 60+ hours to 100+hours per week,real time ,a lot of the time.
 
Morpheous,

Dont worry about the money (I started with $700 of my lawnmowing money :) ) as long as you keep contributing youll be fine....

As for authors;
douglas, farley, cooper, connors, rashke, van tharp, murphy, elder.....

Brokers can't help ya there, I think Interactive Broker is ver cheap....

Good Luck and good trading
PEACE
Commisso
 
Morpheus,

it all depends on how you see trading.. if its to be your hobby, then open a small account, read some books and enjoy yourself.. if its to be a method of saving for retirement, then open a retirement account and get a subscription to investors business daily.. but if this is what you want to do for a living, then you gotta make some tough choices.. either you work and save all you can.. or you move to Seattle and find a prop firm that will back you.. good luck, and welcome to the world of trading.. =)

-qwik


There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Shakespeare - Julius Caesar 1599
 
Qwik,

Indeed it's a tough call, and it'll take time to decide.

I'm not really sure yet how far I want to go with this, so I'll just wait it out, read a lot, save, and go where my heart takes me.
It's brought me here, and that's a start (this is my all time 1st in a chatroom of any kind).

Dufferdon mentioned something about Don Bright applying for prop firm license in Canada - I've looked at his web site (oooh, the horror) and Vancouver was on the list.
Gotta giv'em a call.

Great quote - right on the money.
 
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