Quote from pere490:
Hello fellow traders.
Just wanted to share my trading experiences and future plans.
My background includes a BS in Meteorology, A Certified Financial Planner designation, insurance agency ownership, and now a position as an Financial Advisor for JP Morgan Chase. Now why would I state the previous, because I want to be a full time trader like so many others on this site.
My trading experience began about 3 years ago surfing the internet looking for a new way to make money. I have been in business for myself since 2000 and I was really bored with insurance and retail financial service sales. I opened my first FOREX account with 1k and had no idea what trading was. Now I had read several books on stocks and actually worked as a stock broker for about a year so I had some market experience. Boy how little I knew I was about to find out. Needless to say I blew up my first 1k in about a year. Now losing actually taught me so much and I knew I found a new passion. I read tons of trading books, read websites like this, and decided trading was my future.
One day looking on craigslist.com I ran across an employment ad looking for equity traders for a private equity fund. Sat down with my wife and said can you handle our insurance business, because I really wanted to try this. I spent about a year with the fund trading CEFs, REITs, and ETFs. My first 6 weeks I was making money even had a $700 day at one point. Then the broad market decided to go into the recent chaos and my profit vanished and my equity slowly took a nose dive.
Frustrated with trading style of the fund me and two traders joined together and got a sweet prop deal. We thought we were going to finally make it and get rich or atleast make a good living. I put up 5k and two others put up 15k each. We began daytrading AAPL and other stocks with little success. I managed to close my account with $4200 in equity, one other pulled 9k and the other is still there with 3k and limited buying power.
Once I pulled my money out I decided to spend some money in training with the online trading academy and dumped my 4k into my FOREX account. I decided that you CANNOT trade without atleast 25k so I took a day job as a Financial Advisor again and decided to trade FOREX at night.
I have seen improvement in my trading and right now plan to trade FOREX and work my day job so I can save money, pay some bills, and better be prepared to take on the market full time again.
I will succeed as a trader and I think most can too. It just takes dedication and at times the honesty to know that you are not ready for the endeavor. There is no shame in a day job. Just wanted to share my story because I know reading people stories really can be inspiring and educational.
Wannabe Trader.