how did you learn trading

Hi,
thanks for your answers.
One needs a minimum education to leran by hisself in order not to lose too much money trying and not to lose the will to go on.

I have a couple of questions:
- What is a prop house ? You mean starting working with a fund manager ?

- When you say mentor, you mean someone you will be able to speak with, or a guru (soros, buffet etc.) ?

Tom
 
losing money, in Fact I Lost my apartment once
after 9 years in the Business, now i make money
8 out 10 days ave trading the QQQs and the S&P500

my advice???
If you talk about trading, then is because you're not making
a dime!
Dont listen to anybody (i mean those "Gurus" on TV), Just do your own homework
and develop a strong personal opinion...

a learn to listen from "real people" and read....

when you talk, you dont learn
when you shut your mouth and listen, THEN you learn!

good luck pal..

a few month back i made some honey thanks to Pasbt
on a forex move... He's a real trader,you can learn from people like Mcurto, Gtrader,pasbt,Baruch 4 example (thanks guys) 'cause those are real trader who make their bread trading..

But those guys like
Cramer type gurus are just a bunch of mafiosos...
 
Quote from tomlelab:

Hi,
I'm a beginner in stock trading. I try to learn from other traders, for example at tradermatch.com where you can watch others trade live. I am interested to know whether you think uou learned more from others or from pratciucing by yourself ?
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I've learned trading by making mistakes and learning from my mistakes. The only way you will learn trading is by doing it (just like driving a car)

Keep a log of your mistakes and learn from them, analyse your loses. Are there just part of the game or did you made a trading mistake (Not using stops, didn't let your profit run, didn't cut your losses, etc). Also keep a dairy about your feelings of your trades, did they feel right, etc.

IMHO you can only learn trading by doing it, I also think you can only learn it from your self and not be somebody else. Or you are lucky be finding somebody how is very good!!!

FT79
 
Quote from Moreagr:

hmmm i have been getting the wrong impression the last few months regarding prop shops.

i am self taught but its been along journey... its been about 11 months of real trading and i still cant seems to feel secure enough to quit my night job :(

some days or even weeks make very little money or small losses. not at the level to draw down my account yet. with expenses.

maybe i will go prop but have been hearing alot negative things about them.
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same here.

when i look back at the time and money i am sure the learning curve would have been less stressful had i had a good mentor to stop me reinventing the wheel and losing small amounts of some one elses money rather than my own - risk management!!

you are probably right about prop shops though - there is good and bad in every industry. remember that prop shops dont require you to put a dime down of your own money. arcades do - and these places certainly are often less professional.
 
This is going to sound funny, but it all makes sense in the end. I started out as a broker for a firm. I hated cold calling and selling "stocks of the day" that I knew my clients would loose money on. Although I hated being a broker it gave me great insight and knowledge of the financial industry. So I left the company looking for greener pastures with another company in another position. I was interested in trading and working on the trade desk. Eventually there was an opening for a trading assistant and I was accepted. I have my series 55 and am a licensed trader. I was laid-off after a couple years of trading on the desk of a major brokerage firm due to the collapse of the markets a couple of years ago. So I knew enough about trading to be very dangerous. I traded for myself and was successful. Then one of the other traders that was laid-off at the same time I was told me of a prop trading firm that he was trading at, so I went there for a little while, but wasn't happy for reasons I'm not going to get into now. So now I was wondering what to do. That's when another trader told me that he was starting his own trading company and needed someone else to help him start it up. Now we own a direct access trading company. Things couldn't be better. I can't think of anything that's better than trading.(maybe professional hockey player)
I not only trade, but I also offer my experience to our clients to help them make better trading decisions.
Have a great day trading!
 
Nice story Mustang- mix of good fortune and hard work. Sounds like you've earned your bit of rough justice.

Interesting subject this but, as someone said before, at some stage you need to go it alone and nothing will prepare you for that. I think a mentor would potentially speed the process up a fair bit (and probably save you the odd one or two expensive 'lessons') but it may impose a certain amount of their style onto you too. This needn't be a bad thing, especially if they are proven successes, but so much of your personality comes out in your trading it is frightening. Some people always have to be constantly involved to 'feel' what is going on in the market and others just watch patiently, not bothered that they may miss something. You cannot possibly know how you will react to the challenge until you do it.

I've gone off on one a bit there but, in my opinion (I am a prop trader), I think it would be best to develop your own trading strategy and when you can fundamentally do the job, listening to others with experience is much more enlightening. This is because you can select what you feel is useful, rather than taking it all as gospel (a likely outcome when you haven't got the confidence/belief in your own methodology) and weave it into your decisions.
 
Quote from mhashe:

Based on my experience and others I know, It takes an average of 2.5 to 3 years to Begin to break even, let alone be profitable. And that's doing it fulltime 24/7.
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A typical futures prop firm will expect a trader to make the turn in 8 to 9 months and be positive in his account in 1 year. With proper mentoring and attention, a trader can start seeing some green days in about 4 months; be consistent in 6 and be profitable in 9 months. A prop firm will not wait for 2 yrs or more to see production. It is just too expensive to do that.

How did I learn? I learned by doing. I started trading equities with a friend who was an ace scalper. Then I traded at a prop firm to learn futures. As usual, they promised training, etc but I didn't see any. I actually spent more time at that office than the managers just looking at CQG, indicators, reading CBOT material, etc. I traded a lot during the day and hit my limit consistently for about 3 months. I began to put together training material and ended up helping others with various aspects of charting, etc. The more I helped, the more I learned about how I think and do stuff.

Even though the prop firm was very poorly run and there was a lot of dishonesty, I felt that it was the best environment to really learn. As expected, they went out of business and stole a lot of people's money.

There were traders that would let you watch and will answer questions. Then there were also traders who just had bad tempers, unprofessional and unprofitable. That was a huge asset as far as experience. Seeing what NOT to do is a huge part of learning. Thank god they made the mistakes with their money. I had a chance to learn the ins and outs of trading, the trading business, exchanges, charting, setting up a group, managing a group and how to treat traders and the environment they need.

Like someone else said, prop gets its bad name because people confuse prop with arcades. Arcades make money on commissions and keeping someone in the seats they have. Props have to focus on trader profitability because their money depends on the success of the trader. Two very different business models.
 
From a guy on these very boards. Never met him face to face. We IM through out the trading day. He shared his style and knowledge with me. I am eternally indebted to him. I am actually making a living from trading. Started out losing.......had to put another 5k into the acct within a few mos. of starting (I started in December of last year). Soon I stopped losing and became break even.....I'd be up 10 days out of the month and down 10. The losing days have become few and far between for me now. I'm paying bills......not lighting the world on fire, but improving each day. Now I need to work on making a super living which I hope is not too far off. This is my 2nd attempt at doing this for a living. Last time.....blew almost 25k and gave up. You need time, money and you need to put your ego in check to do this. I love it and hope it becomes very very lucrative.
 
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