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

Arnie said:
These type threads are as amazing as they are depressing.
24 years old. All the time in the world. That's the edge, but they are too naive to see it.

Put $11,000 in an index fund. Find a job you love and add to it every month, no matter what the market is doing. In a few years you have some real money. All the while you have been studying the market and learning. Now step it up and pick some stocks. Now maybe you are beating the indexes every few years or at least not riding losers down. That money starts to compound at a parabolic rate (9% on $11k vs 9% on $300k etc...).

Oh well. Youth is wasted on the young.
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On the other hand the world needs folks that are willing to face very long odds but still keep trying: Starting from our ancestors marching out of Africa to kids want to be professional basketball players. If you accept the statistics that only 5% of traders are profitable it is much better odds than becoming a professional basketball player.

And in this business, 3 years is a short time. I have been at it a lot longer and still consider myself a newbie.
 
ironchef said:
On the other hand the world needs folks that are willing to face very long odds but still keep trying: Starting from our ancestors marching out of Africa to kids want to be professional basketball players. If you accept the statistics that only 5% of traders are profitable it is much better odds than becoming a professional basketball player.

And in this business, 3 years is a short time. I have been at it a lot longer and still consider myself a newbie.
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This is a very true statement. Professional players on their way to fame are always sucked out from women, drugs, education, family etc... it's the few that fight the odds that get there. Competition in sports, chess, poker even trading would be alot higher if it was supported by family, educators and even friends. That's why luck plays such a big part. You have to be in the right environment at the right time. Your passion can take you far but defiently not all the way.
 
Update:
1/29: +101
1/30: -110
1/31: +157
2/1: +401
2/4: +382

Been trying to really limit my losses. Because I've been having trouble cutting bad positions, in order to fix this, I've been trying to be extra careful entering a position and exiting quickly (sometimes too quickly..) whenever I think it may turn into an "iffy" position.

Scraping little profits at a time and not being able to earn a big gain in a single position.

I'm more of you have to earn those big profits from time to time to really grow your capital, yet because I really need to save up capital, I'm thinking of just scraping around until I earn couple thousand more and than I will go for those big gains with just 1 contract size.
 
2/5: (607)
2/6: (316)
2/7: (126)
2/8: 427

Oh man. Almost lost all of my gains this week. Tuesday's loss and Wed's loss was just horrible trading without a careful thought-out plan/exit plan as I was once again, getting overconfident. Entered recklessly and exited without much of a plan except feeling, which quickly led to big losses. Thursday, I think, was just unfortunate event. My fault for not cutting my losses quickly, but I think I traded okay on Thursday... nevermind. On second thought, I panicked when it started going against my again due to my previous 2 day losses.
Today, I traded on a lighter mind - not trying to make a lot of money; just seeing the chart and trying to play off of it. Luck was on my side and i got a good return today. Overall, down ($240) this week.
I haven't doing live streaming as it was making my computer lag, which affected my emotions and my trading. I recorded yesterdays but havent recorded other days (getting lazy) as recording makes my computer (little) slow as well. Can't wait till next week!
 
wabu27 said:
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I haven't doing live streaming as it was making my computer lag, which affected my emotions and my trading. I recorded yesterdays but havent recorded other days (getting lazy) as recording makes my computer (little) slow as well. Can't wait till next week!
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You still don't get it...

Stop worrying about streaming/recording. You shouldn't be doing that while trading, much less on your trading computer while trading. Ug!
 
ironchef said:
On the other hand the world needs folks that are willing to face very long odds but still keep trying: Starting from our ancestors marching out of Africa to kids want to be professional basketball players. If you accept the statistics that only 5% of traders are profitable it is much better odds than becoming a professional basketball player.

And in this business, 3 years is a short time. I have been at it a lot longer and still consider myself a newbie.
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Yes but that's not the case in this situation because he created (increased) the odds of failure with these loans or debts and we know there's many things he doesn't disclose that created more odds due to the fact he doesn't answer those questions that others have posted in this thread.

Its like that one guy with no legs that became the first double amputee runner to compete in the Olympic Games (Oscar Pistorius). Incredible odds against him...he made it.

Yet, while still in his prime he created more odds against himself from ever competing in another Olympics, World Championship when he was convicted of murdering his girlfriend after an arugment and then he's sent to prison.

My point, unless someone has relieved him of those loans/debts and anything else he's created to stack the odds against himself...this is an impossible task because this is not typical trader odds against success.

For example, he's been attempting to do live steaming/recordings of his trading and discover he does not have an adequate computer workstation for such via evidence of the "lag or slowness" on his trading computer when he did it...such will create unusual emotional pressure on his cognitive decision making process that will greatly impact his trade decisions and trade fills.

To contrast others that do the same, they are using a suitable computer workstation for such that does not cause the lag in their broker trade execution platform...no additional pressure on the trader.

Why didn't he first test this live streaming/recording in simulation trading to determine if the live/streaming will slow down his computer workstation...its stuff like this where simulation trading has a purpose...to discover and fix that extra crap that a traders placed on themself prior to any real money trading...stuff that has nothing to do with trading ?

Overnight is correct, he should stop doing the live streaming/recording to remove that extra pressure he created.

Yet, on the flip side, you're right...the world does need traders like this because it needs them on the other side of your trades...he placed himself against unusual extreme pressure to succeed that the typical retail trader is not up against...he now helps to create liquidity in the markets and to fatten the pockets of someone else that has normal odds against them.

P.S. At some point you begin to wonder if there's a psychological (mental health) problem here...reason why any retail trader should approach trading like a job where a potential employer requires the employee to take a medical physical and mental evaluation like most Wall Street firms.

wrbtrader
 
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This is such an entertaining thread! Will Wabu be back? I'm just sucked in like a housewife watching a soap opera. Wabu, if you're still reading these comments, open up a FX account and trade microlots so you can size your bets properly. And don't use the full 50:1 leverage--too risky. Learn how to trade your small account there without blowing it up before you put any more money into it. Don't be wedded to your original method. Yes, I understand it worked like gangbusters on stocks when they were rebounding furiously from the 2009 low, but market conditions are not always that easy. Read at least one serious book on trading every month, and take notes. Don't try to reinvent the wheel. Education goes a long way, but in this field nearly everyone must be an autodidact. Be able to answer the following questions before you trade with real money again:

1. What time frame will I trade (and why do I prefer this time frame over others)? What time frames are easiest to trade profitably, or best for my particular circumstances?

2. How big will my position sizes (bet sizes) be, and why? How will I calculate this?

3. Where will I place my hard, non-discretionary stops, and why? How will I calculate where my stops should go?

4. What is my exit strategy (other than getting stopped out)?

Only *after* you have clear, written (written!) answers to each of these questions should you move on to the last and least important question:

5. What mediocre entry signal(s) will I use to get myself into the market? I say "mediocre," because that is all you need if you have the first 4 elements securely nailed down.

Realize that all you can really do is to limit risk, after which the market will give you what it gives you.

If your original methodology had given you purely random results, your account should have slowly been eroded by commissions, but you should still be in the game. That means your original game plan performed significantly worse than a coin flip. Indeed, if you came up with a system that performed only as well as a coin flip, you could get rich just by moderately (moderately!) scaling up your bet sizes during the inevitable random winning streaks, and then dropping your bet size back down to a base percentage of your account after each loss.

Now go to amazon dot com and invest in some high quality books.
 
I wonder if you really took your time to go through Baby Pips school of pipsiology. If you truly did and also read threads in this forum, then you should know that you are committing a cardinal sin in the forex market. No sane trader takes a loan with such a high interest rate for trading and then quits his job. Anyway, I wish you luck
 
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