Quit Corporate Job to become Options Trader Full-Time. Need Professional Advice.

NPTrader said:
Nah nothing like you are thinking. She is a social worker and not having high expectations other than a home in SF. But watching inflation in SF, needing a comfortable home, you just look at those gains not being enough.

She doesn't mind the trading. She is blown away at the profits. Doesn't mind the draw downs which are not frequent. Those profits combined with working means that the lifestyle has no stress.
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I hear ya man. Good to hear. Sounds like you put yourself in a great spot. Life is too damn short...got to enjoy.
 
NPTrader said:
Nah nothing like you are thinking. She is a social worker and not having high expectations other than a home in SF. But watching inflation in SF, needing a comfortable home, you just look at those gains not being enough.

She doesn't mind the trading. She is blown away at the profits. Doesn't mind the draw downs which are not frequent. Those profits combined with working means that the lifestyle has no stress.
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Ahh the ole SF house thing. Just wait a couple years my friend.

I've been in the bay area for almost 20 years now and I expect yet another "correction." :)

If you ever want to shoot the shit trading wise sometimes perhaps we could arrange a Bay Area get together. I think there's like 5 of us. Hah.
 
Like SF had a real correction.....100k on million dollar home is 10%. Try Chicago. 33%! Houses are cheaper but people are permanently underwater. SF is like manhattan. Unlimited demand.
 
SF has a distorted reality market. Limited housing and crazy wealth with high desirability kept house prices flat through the last downturn. Most owners just held and rode out the turbulence.

Getting together would be fun. I am walking out the door in the am for a camping trip and then have business travel to Sri Lanka, Raleigh, London, and Kiev back to back, so things will be pretty unforgiving until later August. Q2 just closed so doing a lot of first half reviews with the companies I get to be involved with.
 
MarksmanII said:
So what if I changed the personal number from 10k to 100k, to 1000k, and a 4 year living expense, would that make a difference? Would you have then give some real options trading advice. So far people are already confirming what I already know, or giving me non-sense
like you are underfunded, gotta trade forex, go long stock, gotta trade using margins, again useless information. Nothing related to options trading, and You don't need to know my reason why I want to specialize in options.

I feel you have no experience trading options before and just come here to rant or put down the other guy. I don't understand why you are taking it personal, like you expect the other person losing his money is suppose to be yours. It's very immature, like the guy who tells you, you can't do it just because the guy couldn't do it himself. I've trade options for a while, and have experienced all the unpredictable / possible things that could happen, stop telling me like every options trader out there is a loser.


I was seeking professional advices from who had trading option with extensive knowledge from personal experience and to give me things to look out for. Unless you can provide constructive feedback or advice, please just walk away and don't even post, not even sure why you are getting mad at the internet, like an emotional trader.
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Capitalized Funding helps in that every trade is not thought of as in money for one thing. Mentally sticking to your well back tested Trading Plan is hardest problems you will encounter, now in terms of how well your Trading Plan will be the biggest issue. Every month I brain storm or try figure out new ways of encountering new problems and then study hard to find the answers. Cause in real life you much know the answer before the problem, so Trading Plan is education. Most of us who are still here ran through several accounts to learn how to trade, in my time I know two people who never blown out underfunded accounts and dozens who blow over 100k accounts, so money or lack is a 50/50 issue and comes down to if you know the answers. And with options, have to know before you put them on, what do you do when they going the wrong way. Now with me I add more as it going against me but also add on other plays to soften existing loses, and this takes bigger funds. So your capital has to be able to match and still have ample room to take "odd" moves that might go against you.

Are you going to stay with 2% or lower risk? Percentage of risk has more to do about trading that size of account, most day traders get wiped out cause they don't do 2% rule.

Good luck.
 
MarksmanII said:
Hi,

My name is Marksman, and I was wondering if anyone who had experience of trading for a living can give me professional advices on how I can get myself going. I'm sorry for the long post, but it is to give you a general background of my nature.

Just a little background, I am a recent graduate with an economics degree. I am an introvert so I feel I am getting the end of the short stick when it comes to networking into a decent job or relationship building. I don't come from a wealthy family and I'm not the best student out there, and I don't stand-out as much as I could. After graduation, I went on to work in the corporate world in a couple of back-office roles as an entry level financial operations analyst, solving people's problem and letting the upper management get all the credit. I am a very passionate and helpful person and I love to help people anyway I would, but when I feel in a job where strong office politics and credit stealing runs wild, I've no longer had the compassion to continue. Long story short, after the stint they pulled off letting me go after all the contribution I've put in and receiving no recognition. I felt I've have no place in office job where I can work myself up the corporate ladder. I've gave myself time to figure out what I wanted to do with the remainder of my youth.

Thinking back, I felt that going to college was a waste of my 4 year of college, but it didn't go to waste, during my last year, I've encounter a beginners course in options and futures. By no means, I've never thought I would want to become a full-time options derivatives trader and dream of becoming the very best.

A while back during my first job, I've remember the first time I've ever opened an account with a brokerage and traded my first share of Google, but it didn't really excited me. On my mobile phone in the ThinkorSwim, there was a button for options. Thinking back, being the naive overconfident idiot not knowing what I was doing and I put in a trade $2000 long calls worth on a Google stock that was already peaking at 600 range at the top, saw it from from $400 unrealized profit down to -$2000 market value in matter of an hour. A strange feeling came across me, yes I did felt sick and was ready to vomit losing almost a month's pay in matter of minutes, but I also felt I've discovered and learned something from a different perspective, being humble about it and know that if I could lose that as fast and that would mean it is possible to make it that fast also. From then on, I've made a promise to learn and become a options trader. It sounds bizarre, I've never had any interested in trading stocks in whole my life my life before but when I started I've immediately became hooked with option trading.

Keep in mind, this was trying to trade options while working a full time job and that was a big No-No, especially a suicidal attempt at the market. This went on for a while, to be honest, I had no real market analysis experience or trading experience, I kept losing money. I've probably lost 10k in total over a period of couple of small losing trades. Fast forward, to my last job as an entry level financial operations analyst, I was paid okay salary for a freelancer, but I realized I won't make it big time, after losing my motivation and feeling depressed. I've changed my outlook and seek to move towards what drives me. I would never expected it to be trading, but specifically options trading. In my last two month, I've never had such intense desire, motivation, and perseverance to really wanted to do this full time. Everyday after work, I would come home, make dinner and watch/ read about trading from any reasonable source of information. The biggest turning point was knowing that I made my 8 hour shifts pay in matter of minutes, I no longer felt motivated and the situation was compounded with the boss who takes all the credit for my work. I don't want to say I am in trading for the money, I feel that the market challenges me in a way no other job could. I have the freedom to create my own approach, my own rules and try to make something out it in the market. I feel if I can master trading, the money will come, until then I will have to stay humble and keep learning and think of new ways to improve my odds in the market.

But from Hindsight, I knew that if I ever wanted to become successful in anything or at least a path to success, I would need to put in 100% dedication. Starting from scratch with all the losses and experience that came with it, I went on to read and understand how options works. In my last two month of trading options and messing and tweaking around with the black-scholes model in excel, I can say from experience, I am getting to understand the nature of how options values shifts from the underlying movement.

Fast forward to my current situation now, I've recently ended my corporate job and I've saved up about 10k for options trading, and a 6 month living expense. I know my probability of success is slim, but I feel I want to give this a shot as I am still young, I want to know that my life didn't go to waste at least I tried to go after something I felt passionate about.

I didn't come from a traditional finance background, and I know I still lack in market analysis, emotional trading, risk management, but I am putting a lot of my effort as I would do in a regular job to see myself trying to make it in this business.

I am reaching out to you for advices from your personal experience or professional experience you had trading/ options trading in general. I'm a very fond learner of people's life experience, I would love to hear your thoughts and recommendations.
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If you live near the Canadian border, you can relocate and play on the TMX. Your $10,000. U.S. is worth $12,920.50 CDN. I know it's not the CBOE, but there is liquidity, here and there, enough to earn a living. There's about 80 underliers that are transposed with the States.
Good Luck
 
imo, OP should have waited until this year to be able to trade the new micro index futures. I had a similar experience and lost a month's salary on my first options trades. I finally gave up on options to swing or daytrade which is dangerous with a small account, then went to futures only for daytrading, and glad I never went back to options.
 
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