Is $5,000 enough to get started with trading?

Is $5K enough to get started with trading?

I suppose the answer to your question depends on your goals.

If your intent is to finance a lifestyle (i.e. pay bills)- probably not.

If your intent is to make a few dollars here and there; it is entirely possible.

Perhaps a better question is:

Will $5K buy me enough time to learn how to trade?

Maybe, depending on how you manage your money.

Risk it all in hope of nailing a huge win and more likely than not you will lose it all.

However you probably could get away with booking small gains and losses as you accumulate valuable experience and stay in the game for six months to a year or more (depending on your work ethic, emotional composition, risk management, etc.).
 
Re reading your response it is so obvious to me that you really do not have even the slightest idea what anyone here is even talking about. Are you still in high school or something?

The vast majority of prop traders who are successful started with a lot less money and gradually built their accounts up after they learned to trade...they started off maybe trading 200 shares but as their skills developed they gradually increased the share sizes they traded. The initial $5k capital deposit became $10K then $25k. Yes many people lost money, but their loss was limited to only $3k or $5k instead of $25k to $50k. This is standard practice at most prop firms. Why are you having such a hard time with this simple concept?????
 
Quote from Trader7793:

5k is enough to begin trading at a decent prop firm. Obviously the key is to start trading small until you learn to trade!! Just because a firm gives you $200k in buying power does not mean that you should use it. Any prop firm with decent risk management should not allow you to lose too much money per day. The key here is to trade small share sizes...say 200 shares in no more than a couple of positions...until you are consistenly profitable...then increase your position sizes. A lot of new traders try to immediately make good money, prior to developing good, consistently profitable stratigies and end up losing their capital very rapidly. Your first goal should be to learn to not lose money. If you cannot consistently make money trading 200 share lots (granted it will not be much with those sizes) then why move to 1000 or 2000 share lots. If you saved 20k and went to a prop firm and traded large sizes without knowing how to trade, then you still would not have enough capital.
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What you're saying here does make sense. However, I think some people were responding to the general tone of the original post that "icantoday" placed.

He seemed to imply that he was ready to put his cash with Ameritrade, etc. and give it a whirl. In which case he would probably lose his ass.

I wonder if he is even taking any of this in. Here we are on page 9 and he hasn't acknowledged any of this. Then again, given the hostile environment around here, he may be afraid to even show up again.
 
memories are short.........

everyone remember those day trading outfits that would rent you a terminal in some greasy office building where you could stare at screens all day and trade JDSU when it was $300 a share with a $4 spread....

the joint was stuffed with cigarette butts and empty diet Coke cans....

wonder what ever happened to that herd????
 
Quote from icantoday:

I have $5,000 that I can justify using in a new business venture. Is this enough
to get started with day trading? If so could you please suggest a service I should start with (Ameritrade, Cybercorp,Realtick,Rediplus,etrade etc.)

I would greatly appreciate your suggestions.

Ken
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YEAH, 5K IS Just enough to end up like the other 95%.......besides.....I could use another 5k, so thanks in advance.
 
Quote from icantoday:

I have $5,000 that I can justify using in a new business venture. Is this enough
to get started with day trading? If so could you please suggest a service I should start with (Ameritrade, Cybercorp,Realtick,Rediplus,etrade etc.)

I would greatly appreciate your suggestions.

Ken
More...



http://stockcharts.com/education/



http://www.decisionpoint.com/TAcourse/TAcourseMenu.html


http://www.litwick.com/glossary.html

http://trending123.com/patterns/corrective_wave_up.htm

http://www.pring.com/articles/article7.htm
 
Quote from icantoday:

I have $5,000 that I can justify using in a new business venture. Is this enough
to get started with day trading? If so could you please suggest a service I should start with (Ameritrade, Cybercorp,Realtick,Rediplus,etrade etc.)

I would greatly appreciate your suggestions.

Ken
More...

Hi Ken,

Yes you can get started with $5000.00 by trading Index Futures or by trading 100 share lots with IB Brokers. It's so very difficult to learn how to trade and you will probably lose all of your $5000.00.

If you really want to do this you must realize that it takes 1 to 4 years to learn how to trade for a living, and that's if your lucky.

I would open an with www.globalfutures.com/index.html or IB.

Study http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29005&perpage=6&pagenumber=1 and http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=33766

Study everything at www.pristine.com

I sincerely wish you luck, but please understand learning to trade may be the most difficult endeavor you will ever undertake.
 
Already awake, Electric ?!:eek:

Eminilocal posts all their commissions on the website and

that is 2.99 $ RT + exchange and NFA fees for J-trader.

Emini : 5.31 $ RT.

At least a futures broker that is straightforward about their

rates, an exception in the futures business.

With Global you could have 2 traders, trading the same amount

of cars and paying different commissions, bunch of crooks..
 
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