Took out a loan to transition to full-time trading. 24 years old.

Lots of good advice postings here in this thread for folks to look at. A lot can be learned here by reading this thread. At it's core though, this is a wind-up.
 
+14.6% today.
Traded horribly today. Missed some couple fakes that I expected may happen.. wasn't patient enough. Good thing the overall traded moved as I'd predicted. Otherwise might have ended up with a huge loss. Horrible horrible horrible.
I always think I start the day safe, but once I get into trading I keep forgetting the rules I made for myself that's supposed to protect my account. Instead of playing defensive, I go offensive and don't realize until my screen is red.
Lucky trades today. Good predictions but lucky trades.
 
If you are really serious about getting out of debt, why would you go to the lengths of streaming yourself trading, and thus open yourself up to all the peanut gallery stuff that may entail? Isn't that an un-needed distraction to getting back to the green?

I can understand a static journal after the fact...But live streaming? *shakes head*

To each their own. I hope it works for you! Being in debt sux ass.

Not sure what "peanut gallery stuff" means haha but im live streaming so i can see myself trade afterwards and also to get people's attention. im the only guy around me who loves trading and it's been a lonely past 7 years.
 
Props to the OP for hanging in there. Can't wait for the youtube videos ;)

fan27
thank you sir! the videos, honestly, are very boring. i'm thinking of editing it so the video only contains the parts where i'm trading and deleting all the observation parts. but if you got time to spare, look me up! stockfather
 
Not sure what "peanut gallery stuff" means haha

In the old days, when the NYSE trading volumes were low, someone came up with the idea of generating side revenues. For a small fee, anyone could sit in a designated gallery above the trading pit, and throw peanuts at the under-performing pit traders below, for amusement. The show became so popular that at some point in time, the revenues from the peanut galleries exceeded the exchange fees from the pits. It all ended abruptly when the new NYSE commissioner came along. He had peanut allergy and no sense of humor.

The expression "open yourself to the peanut gallery" is thus a floor lingo, which means that you expose yourself as an incompetent trader to the endless stream of ridicule and schadenfreude from the spectators.

And don't ask me what schadenfreude means.
 
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thank you sir! the videos, honestly, are very boring. i'm thinking of editing it so the video only contains the parts where i'm trading and deleting all the observation parts. but if you got time to spare, look me up! stockfather

Dude, if this is you.....just stop. Seriously.

 
Hi guys - in need of your opinions.

I'm thinking about quitting my current job soon and trade full-time. I'm 24, been working for 1.5 years at a finance firm, and make little under 60k per year. Right now I have $9000 and I just took out a loan of $11000 from lendingclub which is going to be deposited into my bank account in less than 4 business days (26% APR). My current plan is trade safe until I get to $30000 then start day-trading. I don't have experience daytrading with real money due to lack of capital but I think I'll be able to make make consistent returns while cutting my losses short.

The reason I think i have a talent in trading is (haha..) my experience from virtual trading. Using $100,000 account with 2x margin ($200,000 buying power) I was able to consistently make at least 2% returns a day while keeping my losses to 1% a day. I participated in virtual stock competitions and finished first places. I developed my own trading style and later found out it was a mix of what people refer to as momentum trading and technical trading.

I've also traded during college and used the profits to pay for rent, phone bills, living expenses, etc. Please note I had about $5000 at the time and I was able to make $1000 (~10% return a month due to leverage) in most months. This was under PDT restrictions. Due to the stupid PDT rule once I went under for a month and because I was paying bills, in the long run I lost money. But every year it's always positive a couple thousand, then slowly sliding down to end the year in the red after that "one month" of negative returns.

I told one friend about my loan and while all he said was "I think that's too risky. Well, you might get lucky but don't do it again", his initial expression was "WTF is he crazy?".

I understand what I'm doing is extremely risky, but I always thought I had a talent for trading and it came off as easy to make at a percent a day. I also never keep my trades overnight. Any thoughts on my stupidity?

Should have asked for people's opinions before taking out my loan, but the dice is thrown...

Getting more capital is fine although you could've gotten that much money from a loan with lot lower interest rate but you REALLY should've kept your day job especially when it actually gives you the exposure to the financial world. You should NEVER trade with money that you cannot afford to lose. That's the No. 1 rule in trading. So many people break that rule and so many people face very dire consequences as a result of it. Lendingclub sending a couple of goons to break your kneecap is the least of your worries.

Without a second income, trading is VERY risky and stressful especially if you are planning on daytrading. The No. 1 rule to succeed in daytrading is cut your losses early and let your profit run. That's VERY HARD to do if you don't have a backup income so the chance of you succeeding in daytrading is very limited. I am not saying you won't succeed but just saying the odds is against you. You are able to do well in paper trading, that's because there is no real money involved. If you lose, there is no impact on your real life financial situation but once real money is involved, then it's a whole new ball game as you will soon find out.

So my advise to you is this: Get a backup income. Get a job, even a part-time one. Get a sugar mommy/daddy or live with your parents, something as a second source of income.

Good luck!
 
@wabu27 why are you watching a WTI CFD chart in Investing.com while you've got IB open and trade CL? Why don't you just watch it in IB...
 
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