Seeking advice (Newbie)

G

G. Reekie

Apologies beforehand if I may have posted in the wrong section.
I am seeking advice for a beginner delving into day trading/swing trading/scalping.
Which books are best for a new start? Any tips and advice?

Thanks in advance.
 
G. Reekie said:
Any tips and advice?
More...

Well, firstly it is important to understand you are trying to do something that is very challenging. I would liken trying to make a living trading to trying to make a living hitting a baseball or trying make a living boxing - very competitive, and it takes no prisoners. Most people lose money, and most people underestimate how hard it truly is to become consistently profitable.

Secondly, I would say the most difficult aspect of trading (from my experience) is learning
to lose money properly. Traits wired into us by thousands of years of evolutionary human development (hope that things will get better, continuing on the path when things are going against you, blind optimism, etc) are necessary to excel in most human endeavors like chasing an animal in the woods so we can eat, but will get you absolutely killed when trading.

With the above said, there are ways to make money trading. Statistical edges do exist. Chart patterns do exist. Some indicators do have merit. Larry Connors wrote some good books that discuss statistical edges on a short time-frame (1 day to 1 week).

However, capturing those statistical edges in a repeatable, profitable, consistent, and risk-managed way is where most fail. If I were in your shoes, I would start backtesting, find an edge, and start trying to trade your edge taking every trading signal and tracking your results in an excel spreadsheet to the penny.

If you can follow your "trading system" religiously for 12 months in a row, taking every single signal, exiting every trade when your system tells you to (whether at a profit or loss), then I think you may have a chance - roughly 95% of traders would not be able to follow this (seemingly) simple task. Which speaks volumes to what I initially said above. Money plays tricky games with the brain.

Good luck.
 
Buy Stan Weinstein's Secrets for Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets. Read it cover to cover and understand it. You will start off in the right foot. Add risk management when done. You still have to manage your monies when trading.
 
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