Quote from LordMelbury:
I am interested in the age of traders and when they started,i started trading when i was 43 over 3 years ago.
Is their an age when it is to late to learn,ie. you cant teach an old dog new tricks.
In my first 2 years i was down as much as $80k but got it all back in my third year of trading but the last 8 months have been differcult for me and i have slipped back in to the red to the tune of $7k.
3 questions:-
1)How old were you when you started trading?
2)How long have you been trading?
3)After how many years did you start to become consistently profitable?(if attall)
-I am 21/22 yo now. I started 'trading', that is BHP (buy, hold & pray) at the age of 7, then started actually actively being interested in the subject at about 11, programmed my first trading system at 12 (BASIC), at 15 I won the regional (all highschools) trading competitions, and spent most time with my friend who was a called 'geek', being mainly interested in computers and finance, which is what I was, too.
While other boys would call me a freak because I wasn't interested in BMX & Magic Cards, I never really cared (and still don't). I had a thick fur, my passion was greater (I think this maybe a requirement if you want to succeed in this business, anyway), but essentially I was about 60/40 in in my interests of hacking (computers) and finance (trading) till about the age of 19.
When 19, I still wanted to be a Systems Engineer / Network Security Expert, however my dreams were somewhat shattered by my trading returns at virtualstockexchange.com, where I was (essentially swing) trading and eventually ended up world champion several times in a row (17XDaily, 6XWeekly,2XMonthly) of about 200,000 competitors, which caused my family and friends to get angry about my reluctance to trade actively.
I mean they -really- got angry.
Eventually I said yeah, OK, but I'll just papertrade on the commercial platforms (and mainly NASDAQ) until I'm really profitable and then I'll make the step. Now it's been over a year since I started trading with real money.
Of course not with losses, though. I think people who let their real accounts go down 80K or even 7K for the year severely lack discipline. If you're losing, don't trade. Papertrade on real platforms. When you (think!) you're good enough (!), trade lots of 100 shares MAX for about 1 year. If that works, you can gradually increase. 7K of trading losses is irresponsible. For anybody. If you had any clue, you should be way UP by now, otherwise dive into the books and papertrade until your eyes bleed. Learn the games.
If U trade NASDAQ, for example, learn for how to play with market maker's, learn their games, understand how they 'fade rallies', 'shake trees', do 'spread staggering' and other spread manipulations and how they 'head fake' their order intents.
Once they can't chase you anymore, you can turn around the turret and fire back! I don't doubt you can successfully short-term trade a market like that any other way. Remember that professionals tend to take exactly the opposite orders to what amateurs take.
-Re whether an old dog can't learn new tricks - Nonsense. This is not about being an athlete, it's about being intelligent and (hopefully) smart. Period. Age doesn't matter much. I know successful traders who're over 60 years old....
Nevertheless, I've read somewhere (Alex Elder's book?) that ppl in their early 20's are best suited for scalping, while slower reaction impairs them as they pass the age of 30. This may be partly true. But then I think maybe that's just 'cause older people tend to be a bit more 'conservative' about trading, i.e. hold on for longer timeframes. Nothing wrong with that.
Hope all this elaboration gave you some insights
Happy Trading,
~Scientist
-P.S: Sorry if some passages come across a bit boasting or self-indulgent - This is not intended, in real life and the markets I try to be a humble person, most ppl don't even know what I'm doing. I have no need to boast.
-P.P.S:Sorry for the previous double-post
