It is not going to happen. Aim for 10% per year with low risk and grow from there.
Get your hands dirty. Reads books on investing & technical analysis. Be modest and get to know your way around. You can be bold if you're the market maker.
Newbie needs help
- Thread starter Lt. Dan
- Start date
It is not going to happen. Aim for 10% per year with low risk and grow from there.
Get your hands dirty. Reads books on investing & technical analysis. Be modest and get to know your way around. You can be bold if you're the market maker.
Okay I just started out doing this back at the end of July. I had about 22K in my account and added another 4K to get over the 25K needed for daytrading although now its about 50% daytrading and 50% swing. Its been hard and I lost quite a bit after starting out. My goal has been and still is $500 a week. Now I'm not going to give any advice except for one thing because I dont feel I have anything all that profound to say.
Now I was just sitting down to start working out my year end stuff and I saw something that really startled me. My Short Term Gain has been $49,295.81 and my Short Term Loss $37,746.86. With the result being a net gain of 11,548.95 from July to December. I made 49K in 5 months, but I lost 37K in 5 months too. Lesson is that the most important thing is to cut your losses!
You may make 10K but losing 10K at the same time will get you nowhere. Set your stops and obey them, I still have trouble doing this and it costs me money every time. Its like a multiple choice test in that your first answer is usually right and you shouldnât change it unless you have a damn good reason to. Same goes for your stops if you say Iâm getting out at -$200 or if it goes down $.15 or whatever you use as your stop then get out. Donât second get yourself when you are losing money.
Is 2K a month off 20K unreasonable? No, but donât count on making that this month or next or even the one after. It'll take time and you run a risk of never being able to do this and just wind up out a few K and quit. Wow that was a lot longer than I thought it would be.
j*mall
Now I was just sitting down to start working out my year end stuff and I saw something that really startled me. My Short Term Gain has been $49,295.81 and my Short Term Loss $37,746.86. With the result being a net gain of 11,548.95 from July to December. I made 49K in 5 months, but I lost 37K in 5 months too. Lesson is that the most important thing is to cut your losses!
You may make 10K but losing 10K at the same time will get you nowhere. Set your stops and obey them, I still have trouble doing this and it costs me money every time. Its like a multiple choice test in that your first answer is usually right and you shouldnât change it unless you have a damn good reason to. Same goes for your stops if you say Iâm getting out at -$200 or if it goes down $.15 or whatever you use as your stop then get out. Donât second get yourself when you are losing money.
Is 2K a month off 20K unreasonable? No, but donât count on making that this month or next or even the one after. It'll take time and you run a risk of never being able to do this and just wind up out a few K and quit. Wow that was a lot longer than I thought it would be.
j*mall
It's too bad we don't have a newbie FAQ. Read the following books and pretend-trade with the following free software www.tcnet.com
www.stockcharts.com
www.yahoo.com
www.prophet.com
Books/Media:
Wall St. Journal Guide to Understanding Money & Investing
Trading for A living
Trade your Way to Financial Freedom
Statistics for Dummies
Technical Analysis for Dummies
Trading for A living
New Trading Systems 4th Ed
A Random Walk down Walk Street
McMillan on Options
Stock Market Wizards
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
Journal: Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities
Daily Newsletter: www.briefing.com
TV: Bloomberg
Warning: Trading is known to cause pms in male rats
www.stockcharts.com
www.yahoo.com
www.prophet.com
Books/Media:
Wall St. Journal Guide to Understanding Money & Investing
Trading for A living
Trade your Way to Financial Freedom
Statistics for Dummies
Technical Analysis for Dummies
Trading for A living
New Trading Systems 4th Ed
A Random Walk down Walk Street
McMillan on Options
Stock Market Wizards
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
Journal: Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities
Daily Newsletter: www.briefing.com
TV: Bloomberg
Warning: Trading is known to cause pms in male rats
Thanks to all that have given some good advice, I will start reading up on your suggestions. And to the rest of you, you may want to consider getting a life. If all you have time to do is try and cut people down with a few sarcastic comments then you may need something better to do. Thought it said "elite" trader, not "jerk-off" trader. I actually am a Real Estate agent and do okay with that. I also invest in Real estate and also do okay with that to. I just would like something to do early in the morning (I'm on pacific time). The stock market seems very interesting to me and I would like to learn more. When I started in Real estate a few years ago one thing I did was sign up with a website with Real estate investors that were doing very well. They were very helpful and I credit a lot of what I have done to there knowledge and advice. So I guess that is what I am trying to do here. Just kinda was hoping to do it while avoiding the "children" that also belong to this site. Wishful thinking. Thanks again for all who are helping. Keep em coming, I'm taking notes.
Dan,
these guys aren't necessarily children ...some are gunslingers and some of them are quite good at what they do...
...compare your question to the a guy in 1800's living out in the wild West -coming out in the street after a big gun fight and asking the gunslinger for advice like ..."what's the best kind of gun to buy?"
....some of this cockiness comes from being good at what they do....what did they do? survived...Just like the gunslinger -- Many of them have come back from near death in the markets having blown out accounts worth thousands....but they lived to tell the story and maybe even now they make a living doing it....
To your original question....learn first...read,read,read...then trade paper...then small trades until you learn....then RISK MANAGEMENT .....learn to manage risk
Remember survive to trade another day....you can probably make more money in real estate because you already know how...but once you start trading you'll never leave it and eventually you'll do better...
As far as a newsletter, it won't matter you can find a ranking system out there on the internet that will tell you which one is making the highest returns....you can purchase it..blindly follow it and maybe make some money and never really understand why...IMO it's very hard to blindly trust others with your investment capital.....and it's probably not what you've done to get the first 20K.....
Jeff
these guys aren't necessarily children ...some are gunslingers and some of them are quite good at what they do...
...compare your question to the a guy in 1800's living out in the wild West -coming out in the street after a big gun fight and asking the gunslinger for advice like ..."what's the best kind of gun to buy?"
....some of this cockiness comes from being good at what they do....what did they do? survived...Just like the gunslinger -- Many of them have come back from near death in the markets having blown out accounts worth thousands....but they lived to tell the story and maybe even now they make a living doing it....
To your original question....learn first...read,read,read...then trade paper...then small trades until you learn....then RISK MANAGEMENT .....learn to manage risk
Remember survive to trade another day....you can probably make more money in real estate because you already know how...but once you start trading you'll never leave it and eventually you'll do better...
As far as a newsletter, it won't matter you can find a ranking system out there on the internet that will tell you which one is making the highest returns....you can purchase it..blindly follow it and maybe make some money and never really understand why...IMO it's very hard to blindly trust others with your investment capital.....and it's probably not what you've done to get the first 20K.....
Jeff