Hi. Asking for a friend, what is the fastest way for a 30 year old middle school drop out to make a career out of trading? What is the best way? Ideally would like to daytrade index ETFs (IWM,QQQ,SPY) on a 10 minute time frame and bring in a consistent 2-4% monthly.Is this impossible? Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks
A career? Forget it, at least for now. Invest. WITHOUT FAIL, NO EXCUSES invest a large portion of your income. Set up a 401K or a Roth, whatever, depending on where you see your income level at retirement age, vs over the course of your career. But either one is better than nothing. Set the account up with a brokerage that caters to swing or day traders. Remember though, that there are some restrictions on how you can trade IRA or 401K accounts and TBH I don't know much about that, so you need to do some research. Anyway, put the max in every year. This is extremely important, and is orders of magnitude more important while you are young and struggling than later when you are comfortable and have more bucks to invest. The magic of compounding makes the money you invest at 30 about twice as important as the money you invest at 40 or 45. A good goal for now is to build up your investment portfolio to the point that the earnings will support you in retirement. At 30 you are starting a little late, but not so late that it isn't worthwhile by any means.
Keep working. Don't give up your day job, as they say. If you can free up your mornings, from about 0900 (market opens at 0930, but you need a glance at the premarket action) to 1100, you could day trade on a paper account while you study. Learn how the markets work without risking actual money. Maybe invest in ETFs, and slide your assets back and forth with the market, between bull and bear funds. That way you keep earning when the market is in decline. Stay away from leveraged funds for now. This sliding gives you an opportunity to look for good entry and exit points, and gives you hands on experience placing orders and watching your portfolio. Sort of a hybrid between swing trading and investing.
To support a family by trading, with a 4%/month return, wow... let's say you need an income of $3k/month. That would be $75k in your brokerage account, and that is not even considering taxes and other expenses. Better figure $100k for your trading stake. And your 4%/month can certainly be done, by an experienced, knowledgeable, and disciplined trader. Which you are not, yet. Odds are hard against you ever becoming so. Not putting you down... it's just the percentage. Depending on whose stats you are going by, 80% to 90% of new traders fail to make it. Talking about some fairly intelligent and hard working people, simply not making it. The odds are firmly against you.
What would you use for funding? How much is available?
