Still in College - Any Advice

Quote from bigbrent701:

Drew send me a PM if your interested in finding a summer internship maybe we can hunt together. John who do you trade for? Did you start right out of college, I really dont like the idea of going prop right out of college using my own money ...
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... talk about the blind leading the blind!
 

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Quote from bigbrent701:

Wow as usual you all are giving the guy that asked the question a bunch of flack. I can honestly say that I know completely where he is coming from. I am a Junior at the University of Maryland. Ive known the markets were the place i wanted to be since my sophomore year of high school and 4 years later i have not detoured from this at all.

Honestly I agree with what everyone else is saying to stay in school. Thats important because a degree from Penn state is valuable and like they have said you can trade any time you want. Personally i want to try trading again after i graduate opposed to waiting say 5 years till im out of college. My reasoning behind this is that I run the risk of meeting a woman, getting married and starting to have children and before i know it I will be 40 years old out of shape, overweight, a mortgage, screaming teenagers, a poor sex life, and a receding hairline. If this is where your passion is then i say DO IT. You only live once and if you put it off you may never get to and you will regret it later in life saying "if only i gave it a shot.... what if".

Now a little bit about me, as i said earlier i am a junior at Maryland econ major, wanted finance but spent too much time trading my first 3 semesters to get decent grades. Basically i eat sleep and breath the market. I can innundate myself with the market for nearly 24 hours a day because a lot of my dreams are about the market now.

My grades are not great (2.5 GPA), and i live in Maryland which isnt by any means a financial center making networking harder. I actually worked Legg Mason (now Smith Barney) for a year and a half before college, thats when I knew that i didnt want to sell rather i wanted to be doing the actual trading, the taking risks, not into that bullshit reading what an analyst said and holding a position for 4 years, you know the mentaility that brokerages unstill in you.

So a little bit about my trading beliefs.

Basically I have surveyed various different markets paper trading stocks, options, futures, forex. As for real money I have only traded options and strictly as a leveraged position. That didnt turn out so well but i believe I have made the necessary adjustments. I believe that options swing trading probably wasnt for me as I ended up making most of my trades in DIA QQQ or SPY. I really want to try futures day trading, in particular Indices and the energy markets. My style is technically based mostly on price action, support and resistance and bollinger bands.

Favorite trading books:
Market Wizards
New Market Wizards
Stock Market Wizards
Trade your way to financial freedom
Financial freedom through electronic daytrading (elements of system mostly)
Reminesces of a stock operator


I am going to try to get a summer internship at MFB but i think my chances of getting that are slim to none and slim left town. Im not sure what alternatives I have. Basically i need a steady paying job or my parents will cut me off completely. They have agreed to help me financially till i graduate as long as I am working the summers while not in school.

I am willing to move to NYC Chicago or wherever for the summer for a steady paying job in the markets. I do not care if Im working for a senior trader either as long as our styles are comparable. I am just looking to get my foot in the door. Help?

Sorry if i stole your thread too btw.
I have read ET for 2 years now but never got around to posting because of the flaming that the n00bs here often take.
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Brent as a friend, I have be trying to make money day trading indices and currencies on CME for a year. I am older than you and have 7 years business experience. I can be done, but it is going to be tough bud. I am breakeven after a year, haven't made a penny. I have been scalping for 4-6 ticks alot of times and it can't be done at $5RT per trade. I am not trying to discourage you just to give you real wolrd perspective. Spend alot of time reading books on psychology. Test your methods on a good simulator, Ninja Trader.

True funny story. Last summer after only 1 month of paper trading some ideas I started getting up late and saying shit I would have hit that for $500! I will be making $500 a day within 3 months. Somedays now I make $100 per contract and look back and laugh, but it is coming with time. I have two mentors you better get one

Edit.....don't mess with the energy markets, the likes of T Boone Pickens will hand you your ass. If you want to try make money on QM on a simulator.
 
Quote from dandxg:


Edit.....don't mess with the energy markets, the likes of T Boone Pickens will hand you your ass. If you want to try make money on QM on a simulator.
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I disagree with this 100%. :) I find that the QM at times can be EASIER then the index futures. Might be my trading style, trend following, but when the indexes are just chopping away, you can get some nice moves in the QM. Same goes with the Euro-FX. Don't be afraid to play markets just because T. Boone Pickens is there. Not I wouldn't recommend it for someone starting out, but as your strategy and confidence grow dont limit yourself to just one or two markets. Just my 2 cents.:)
 
Quote from bigbrent701:

John who do you trade for? Did you start right out of college, I really dont like the idea of going prop right out of college using my own money. Parents also frown on the idea right out of college of going prop.
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Worked for a year, hated it, got incredibly lucky and got backed by a group of locals.
 
Quote from John47:

Worked for a year, hated it, got incredibly lucky and got backed by a group of locals.
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hehe yeah thats quite lucky indeed, i dont expect anything to be handed to me. Course i wouldnt say no either.

Thanks for reminesces in the Ebook format have read it several times one of the first books i have read.

I seemed to have hit a plateau in my system testing, will check out ninja. Im having a hard time describing my parameters. I used stock fetcher on my watch list of 200 or so stocks before but didnt like it as i was often chasing an option play a day late because their signals were not real time.

Blind leading the blind right, again unecessary flaming of the n00bs. Why bother posting a flame.

Have maxed out on the psyc classes i can take at my college w/o being a psych major.

Interested in automating and backtesting/foward testing my approach.

Dan i made a post about looking for mentors/chat and basically i was laughed at. I dont necessarily want to be spoon fed rather i want someone to share my ideas with and be critiqued. I have played poker for 2 years now and have had my ups and downs but ever since i found a "mentor" things have gotten better. Hes not a mentor that spoon feeds me how to play rather we just talk and he critiques. I like to interact with other traders but I talk a mile a minute and feel that these posts dont get the job done.

Thanks for everyones advice, i will probably be creating a journal that I will keep about my process of finding a internship and mentor and prep leading up till the time i start to trade again.
 
Quote from dandxg:


Edit.....don't mess with the energy markets, the likes of T Boone Pickens will hand you your ass. If you want to try make money on QM on a simulator. [/B]
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Uh, yep. T Boone Pickens is looking for you. You and you couple 'O grand.

Idiot.

Wake the hell up. ANYONE can make money in the markets. 'Cept perhaps most ET posters.
 
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