Just beginning - looking for some next step advice

R

richrf

Hi everyone,

I am 56 and retired. I recently began trading in order to supplement my investment income. So far I have:

1) Read several books including those by Zweig, O'Neill, Nassar, and others, just to get a feel of different strategies.

2) Adopted a trend-following strategy and began trading ETFs.

3) Over the last few weeks have consistently a bit of money each day trading an average of 3 trades a day. No losing days.

4) Opened a couple of accounts at Wells Fargo in order to take advantage of their free trades. This helps minimize my overhead while I am learning. I can open similar accounts with Bank of America which gives me 30 free trades a month.

5) Read Barrons, Economist, and WSJ to get a macro view of what is happening in the U.S. and world economy. It helps me.

6) Studied many threads on this forum in order to acclimate myself to tools, education, strategies, etc. that are available in the public domain.

7) Downloaded QuoteTracker and ThinkorSwim software and use only a fraction of their capabilites to trade. The software will take me a while to get use to.

8) Reviewing material on several sites such as SeekingAlpha to familiarize my self with various trading vehicles.

9) Adopted a cautious approach to learning about trading, since I am not sure I cut out to doing this. However, I need to do something other than buy-and-hold - an investment philosophy that I have no confidence in.

Well, this is where I am at. I welcome any suggestions on what I might do over and beyond this in order to better prepare myself for trading, should I decide that this is something that I can successfully do in order to augment my income. Thanks for any suggestions.

Rich
 
Thanks Hombre for the suggestion. Can you explain to me the advantages of trading eminis. Thanks again for your help.

Rich
 
Quote from richrf:

Thanks Hombre for the suggestion. Can you explain to me the advantages of trading eminis. Thanks again for your help.

Rich
More...
The e-mini's are basically like trading the ETF's on souped up steroids.

They utilize extraordinary leverage to produce outsize gains with a minimum amount of capital required to hold a position.

This website can get you started down that path if you have to go there.

www.cme.com

But if you are happy with the returns you are getting you may not need to, it's up to you.

Whatever you do, move very slowly, slower is definitely faster in this game.

Good trading,

JJ
 
You might demonstrate that your trading method shows profitable outcome with historic price data. The demonstration might also show the magnitude of losing periods.
 
Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies.

I will check out eminis. I think I will use leveraging once I have convinced myself that I can make a bit more than I lose. But I think that I will start educating myself on this topic at this time, so I know what I have available to me should I begin to use leveraging. Thanks.

Thanks for the suggestion to backtest my trading method. Since it does not rely totally on mechanical means - it does requiring looking at charts and forming some sort of viewpoint of what the charts are saying - I think that backtesting will be difficult. However, the proof will be in the pudding. When I look back at the results 6 months from now, I will either be doing well, doing poorly, or doing nothing. Hopefully, whatever I am doing, I will be doing consistently, so that I can either refine my techniques.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

Rich
 
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