How does one get started...and how did you get started ?

2

2ez

I have bought three books thus far:

Mastering the Trade
Come into my Trading Room
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator


The goal is to start over trading with my own funds.

I say start over , because i made a nice chunk of change during the late 90's early 2000 (prior to 9/11) and the accounts are not were they use to be. Back then, IMO one didn't have to have much of a plan...

simply buy: Dell, Microsoft, Siebel Systems, Amazon and Qualcomm...

and watch your account grow.


Try that now.....and your account will be very short lived...

just looking for any suggestion and comments...

and if anyone cares to share how they got started....that would be most appreciated.


My background thus far:

- Bachelors in Risk Management with a concentration in Actuarial Sciences

- Series 7 and 63

Mentored by a CFA who believes in very conservative investing. He lost a lot of his clients back in the late 90's, yet when the markets suffered early 2000 and after 9/11, his firm grew from managing $2bil, to now just under $6bil.

Internship turned into a permanent part time gig at an Asset management firm (1992 -1997) = Trading assistant (Administrative work...also back office)

Supervised Back office at brokerage in NY from 1997 - 2004.

Currently (2004 - present) working with Annuities doing some Actuarial Work.



Thanks in advance ! !
 
Thanks for the reply Ripley....

i see others viewing, but no one is commenting.


woulds really appreciate hearing any and everything.


wish me luck in my quest......tell me i am making a dumb decision....... !
 
Quote from 2ez:

I have bought three books thus far:

Mastering the Trade
Come into my Trading Room
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
More...

In the past two years since I started trading I read 30+ books. (I just counted them) Some are good, some suck. Some are interesting and taught me nothing and some are dry/boring but taught me a lot. That being said, in retrospect, I was absorbing what I wanted to hear and ignoring what I didn't want to hear. This lead to mistake after mistake, even though I knew better.

When I first bought the book "High Probability Trading" I read the first couple of sections and thought to myself, blah, blah, blah....I've heard all this before. I put the book down, read some other ones and went on making mistakes. A year later I finally surrendered and picked up the book again, only this time I actually listened to what he was saying.

If I had to suggest just one book for someone to read it would be High Probability Trading. It's a no bulls#!t book that can help you get an edge and develop your own strategy. It gives ideas for trading in different time frames rather than just telling you how to day trade or swing trade. It wasn't until I reread it that it finally clicked and I stopped speculating and started trading.
 
Quote from ess1096:


When I first bought the book "High Probability Trading" I read the first couple of sections and thought to myself, blah, blah, blah....I've heard all this before. I put the book down, read some other ones...
More...

I did the same thing because the HPT book is a BIG book.
 
Thanks for the reply.....


I can totally relate to the starting a book then putting it down. Not going to call it cocky...but i was real confident in my abilites.....

became humble quick after experiencing a few down days.

I bought into a few positions at the right time.....but the problem was after the unrealized gain. I didn't know when to get the heck out. So many times a winning position turned sour on me.


on the flip side.....not knowing when to get out of a bad trade.

much different than 1999 and 2000 = Buy SEBL on Monday....and be up 30% by Wednesday.......2wks later....your money has doubled.



I did see that book as suggested reading on another board....



on my way to amazon.com now.....
 
I made $220 million trading tiger shrimp futures in Vietnam. I like to eat shrimp and thought so did everyone else, so I went long with my $10,000 grubstake I made breaking kneecaps for the mafiaoso in Jersy. It is that easy.....
 
Three books Thirty books. Booyah! Last I heard there was something like 85,000 books on the market. Line them up on a shelf like empty beer cans. Personally I read 'em and toss most of them.

Write your own book!

Where to start? Buy one stock THEN buy that same stock on a trading simulator. Everytime you feel like making a move do it on the simulator but hold your real money position. Then analyze your trades on the simulator.

You can't internalize knowledge by reading, it come from writing.

Good Luck.
 
Quote from nutmeg:



You can't internalize knowledge by reading, it come from writing.

Good Luck.
More...

I half agree. I have taken the knowledge I have learned from books and combined it with actual trading experiences and developed a couple of strategies that I wouldn't trade until I wrote them down on paper. By writing, or typing them, I was able to fine tune them prior to jumping in. I find that for me, I am much more disciplined following my written rules than to just say I'll do so and so if the underlying does whatever.

It's not how many books you read but what you get out of them. If I knew then what I know now I would narrow my book selection down to just a couple, maybe three, that actually gave me useful information. The rest were either a waste of time or only motivational. And who needs motivation? If I wasn't already motivated I wouldn't have read the damm book in the first place.
 
Quote from Ripley:

I did the same thing because the HPT book is a BIG book.
More...

Yes it is. That's why I always kept a notepad and pen with me when I read it the second time and actualy took notes. When I was done with the book I had the raw ingredients in my notebook neccessary to write my strategy. :)
 
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