Jake Berstein

[rcanfiel]

Quote from UNLV_TJ:

Thank you for all your help.

I ran to the library and checked out "Trading For A Living" by Dr. Elder. I read through it in a week, loved it, great read.

I have another of his books on hold at the library, and I plan to read this book again before checking out the next book.

I have read quit a few books on trading, and I am starting to get a feel for T/A. I have studied stocks for about a year, based mostly on fundamentals, so the two worlds are slowly coming together.

So I believe I am at the point I need to start paper trading and designing a system to move towards my goal of trading for profit (hopefully).

I have two questions and the answer to one will probably help determined #2.

#1) I will probably plan to start trading with an account between $5,000 and $10,000. This will allow me to have enough to trade some vehicles, but not risk too much compared to my over all net worth. With this amount of money, what would you recommend I choose among for a trading vehicle? Forex? Stocks? Stock Futures? I believe my account is too small for many Futures contracts, though I maybe incorrect in my assumption.


#2) Based on #1, is there a good practice trading website, so I can basically trade a fake account to practice my trading strategies?


Thank you for your help. Even if I fail in this endevor (which I do not plan to do), I will at least know I tried my hardest.

If you trade stock indexes, you can do a free account at timertrac.com, basically trading long and short on S&P or whatever . The intent is for timers, but you can use it yourself. You can also pay $90 or so at collective2.com and trade almost anything. It is a cheap way to practice. Heck if you are good, you can even make some money as a system vendor lol

Regardless of whatever you may hear, you should either papertrade or trade VERY SMALL amounts for a long time, until you are consistently profitable. If you cannot do it with this, it is even worse at larger sizes. Most new traders lose everything in a year or so. Most successful traders took awhile to get profitable, finding what works for them. IF you don't blow your wad first, you might eventually join them. Perserving your trading capital comes FIRST.

 

[UNLV_TJ]

Quote from rcanfiel:

If you trade stock indexes, you can do a free account at timertrac.com, basically trading long and short on S&P or whatever . The intent is for timers, but you can use it yourself. You can also pay $90 or so at collective2.com and trade almost anything. It is a cheap way to practice. Heck if you are good, you can even make some money as a system vendor lol

Regardless of whatever you may hear, you should either papertrade or trade VERY SMALL amounts for a long time, until you are consistently profitable. If you cannot do it with this, it is even worse at larger sizes. Most new traders lose everything in a year or so. Most successful traders took awhile to get profitable, finding what works for them. IF you don't blow your wad first, you might eventually join them. Perserving your trading capital comes FIRST.

Thank you for your help.

Yes, I plan to trade in small amounts. If I go with a $10,000 account, I will only be trading maybe $3,000 at a time, and risking hopefully only 2% MAYBE 3% on my stops.

I know this will be a long jouney, and I may never even become profitable enough to live off of it. Despite knowing this, I still want to give it my all.

With this small of an account, what are my options for trading. I was thinking even a single E-Mini contract would be too much for me. Are there any commodities, or I am stuck with Stocks/Stock Futures/Options?

Thanks again!

 

[wrangler]

Regarding Jake Bernstein, I can't say much about his later efforts but some of his earlier works are very good IMO. If you believe in cycles in markets, he'd written a few good books on the subject. Also, there is a couple of good books by jake bernstein for the subject on indicator usage in very unconventional fashion.

 

[wrangler]

To UNLV TJ.
Since you are starting out, I'd like to give you a few pointers if you don't mind. First of all, stay away from all futures trading vehicles and all options regardless of their underlying instruments. The reasons are as follows. Futures are highly leveraged hence they skew the risk parameters in such way that you can't control the risk precisely. Although you can never achieve perfect risk control in trading the markets, it is very important that we try as much as possible. However, in futures markets, you also have to contend with extra risk variable brought into the trading process by LEVERAGE. The problem is that most people have difficulty grasping the concept of leverage. In futures trading, you must first understand the concept of leverage before attempting to understand the meaning of risk. In option trading, you have to deal with what's called 'Time Decay Factor'. It's just like Leverage but the difference is that it's slow pain whereas leverage is quick pain. As an options buyer, Time Decay will work against you most of time. Its the reason why 90% of options buyers will lose money 90% of the time. You are going to be no better off as options seller either. Being an options seller is like penny wise and dollar foollish. Most of the time, as a options seller, you will probably make a few bucks here and there but on one rudawakening moment, you will positively take the Mother of all Losses and then some. However, the futures and options are pale in comparison to this one particular market, namely Forex.
Basically, forex is over-the-counter market. That is, you are at the mercy of the dealers at all time. Even the trading capital that you have with them is at risk. And I'm only refering to the legitimate interbank dealers. As a private retail trader, most likely, you'll probably deal with the bucket shops. Dealing with bucket shops will add on another impediment to your already illusive success in forex market. If you have no clue as to what a bucket shop is, read a book called 'Reminiscences of stock operator' by Lefevre. As a novice trader, you should start out by trading in stock markets first operating on the LONG SIDE ONLY in the Most Liquid Issue Only. The reason are many folds but the most predominant reason is that over the long run, the stock market will go up indefinately due to perpetual inflation. The second reason is that shortselling is very difficult to do nowadays because of regulations(i.e. up tick rule). Last but not the least reason that I can cite in this thread is that the reliability of stock market bottoms is better than that of market tops. Use the bottom to initiate the positions and use the tops to liquidate your positions or at least scale out of your positions. good Luck

 

[rcanfiel]

Quote from UNLV_TJ:

Thank you for all your help.

I ran to the library and checked out "Trading For A Living" by Dr. Elder. I read through it in a week, loved it, great read.

I have another of his books on hold at the library, and I plan to read this book again before checking out the next book.

I have read quit a few books on trading, and I am starting to get a feel for T/A. I have studied stocks for about a year, based mostly on fundamentals, so the two worlds are slowly coming together.

So I believe I am at the point I need to start paper trading and designing a system to move towards my goal of trading for profit (hopefully).

I have two questions and the answer to one will probably help determined #2.

#1) I will probably plan to start trading with an account between $5,000 and $10,000. This will allow me to have enough to trade some vehicles, but not risk too much compared to my over all net worth. With this amount of money, what would you recommend I choose among for a trading vehicle? Forex? Stocks? Stock Futures? I believe my account is too small for many Futures contracts, though I maybe incorrect in my assumption.


#2) Based on #1, is there a good practice trading website, so I can basically trade a fake account to practice my trading strategies?


Thank you for your help. Even if I fail in this endevor (which I do not plan to do), I will at least know I tried my hardest.

Depends on what you want to trade. Open E Cry (openecry.com)will give you a few weeks free. If you are trading indexes only, you can get a free account through TimerTrac.com (as a "system vendor"). For a more general place, you can get like 6 months on collective2.com (as a "system vendor") for $90 or so, and trade almost anything imaginable. It uses realtime prices and entries/exits, and you will see what you do, food/bag or ugly. Better than "paper trading" at home.