Seeking advice on whether trading is appropriate for my situation

Quote from ammo:

if the hypothesis worked ,you being right next to it , would have seen it, you need to learn to trade first, it might be a pyschological variable that isn't in your computer
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The most important part of trading.
 
Quote from gmst:

you seem numerically bent. my advice - come up with strategies based on stats, technicals etc. backtest them and trade at least 5 strats together in a portfolio. You will be better than 90% of people on this website, might still not make money however if all your 5+ strategies suffer from overfitting - however just diversifying over more strategies is a superior way than trading or trying to perfect any one strategy.

The whole process will take around 1.5 years of hard work - around 8 hrs per day - includes software selection, getting acquainted with software, getting acquanited with markets and proper market selection, proper strategy idea selection (like MR, momentum, pairs etc), designing tests on these strategies and finally making portfolio....I did all this took me roughly 1.5-2 years to sort everything out. Then I stumbled because I didn't execute my strategies as I designed them. Took me 10 more months to build proper systems so that I can execute flawlessly, without fail.

Its a long process my friend. Cheers :)

Edit: My experience building semi-automated/fully-automated intraday systems for futures
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The trick is next to nobody has the patience or mindset to go through this. The human mind wants instant gratification. It takes years of experience to get past all the junk; until you feel the REAL pain of losing money one will never fully understand.

I openly admit that ii am in the middle of this process and have been at it for over 6 years.
 
Quote from ammo:

if the hypothesis worked ,you being right next to it , would have seen it, you need to learn to trade first, it might be a pyschological variable that isn't in your computer
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If you're trading *systematically*, then psychology matters only after you've found an edge. Prior to that, from what I've observed here, discussions about psychology tend to be a way to avoid work. It's easier to wave hands than to mine for an edge.

After you have one, yes, I agree psychology becomes paramount. At that point, you must address temptation to override the system, or pull the system when it's in a losing streak but within parameters, or fiddle with the sizing because the market is rallying and you want to double the shares to make up for the last trade and on and on.
 
Quote from mastacoli71:

It takes years of experience to get past all the junk; until you feel the REAL pain of losing money one will never fully understand.
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Very Very True and I agree no one will understand until they lose themselves tens of thousands of dollars.
 
To be honest the barrier to trading will be pretty tough to break down to become profitable. You sound like a bright guy though, so it's definitely doable.

Here's my take on your situation. The chances of being profitable for both #2 & 3 can actually be pretty similar. It's hard to make a lot on a software product, but it is also extremely difficult to make it in trading.

However, in trading, once you become profitable, it is much easier to scale that profitability upwards and really snowball it. The thing is, there's no guarantee you'll get there.

The other, is that building another software product to sell will likely increase your skill set, and at the very least can be an excellent addition for your portfolio. You may not end up making money on this software product, but you certainly aren't completely 'wasting' your time either.

If you're not in a hurry, then why don't you do a mix of 2 & 3?
 
Quote from SteveNYC:

Oh Jack. He's holds two Masters degrees.

Masters in Obfuscation and Masters in Bullsh*t.

I seriously don't get why a person would spend so much time fabricating nonsense. It's a waste of time.
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lol ! Do you have him on ignore as well ? It was not easy for all of us in this situation to know whose ramblings Oftomas was alluding to.
 
Quote from Handle123:

I have always advised people that in order to trade without great stress, to continue with their day jobs. Start trading with longer timeframes and build up accounts all the while you continue to backtest. When you get really good at longer duration trading, drop down to swing trading, as time passes, accounts need to grow and your education. It is so much less stress when you have money/health ins coming in that is guaranteed, too many fail cause of the extra stresses. Only when you get really good at swing trading would I advise to go into day trading. But hardly anyone ever listens to do it this way cause lack of funds and patience, people get attracted to fool hardy dreams of grandeur but have so little knowledge of themselves and Price Action.

Good luck.
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I totally agree with these advices. Without knowing about them, my path to trading followed this path. Once I was able to develope a successful swing trading strategy, I took the same concept and applied it to automated daytrading.

Real trading or paper trading your strategy is a must. Doing it yourself first will give you lots of insight on if it will work or not. Even once you have coded it, you will continue to tune and update it. I'm constantly trying new ideas and seeing if it will improve the backtest.

I'm a firm believer in the KISS principal. Find a niche, keep it simple, keep on testing even after it's live. You will need to know when it stop working, thus, you will continue to change and improve it.

Most important thing: You have to have a passion for it. Do it because you love it, not because you want to make money from it. At the end of the day, it's a game.
 
Thanks to everyone who took the time to read my post and reply.

My motivation to look into trading is purely monetary. I want to make money, and since I have a technical background, understand market mechanics, and do well under pressure at poker (I don't start revenge playing), I thought this would be a viable path. I'm not looking to get rich quick, it's ok if it takes years. I also find all aspects of it interesting--from the research to the systems building to getting direct feedback from the market.

But yeah, I care only about the money. I don't love the markets. If you told me I could make great money operating a fleet of dim sum carts, I'd do that. I'm also not willing to devote myself to it full-time until it pays more than what I make now.

So after thinking about it for a few days, I'm going to just open an account and actively invest, holding positions for weeks or months at a time. I'll see how that goes and read a few trading books (non-psych) in the interim.

I'm not sure what I'll end up doing. I have a deal to write a tech book at the moment so I'll revisit this again after that's done.

Thanks again.
 
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