Turning $15K credit card debt into financial freedom
- Thread starter Redsails
- Start date
A little info about myself
I am a 35 years old cis-gender straight man born and raised in a poor Third World country. I did well academically in high school and got scholarship to study at a prestigious European university. After graduation I worked in management consulting, then got MBA from a top-10 school in US. After b-school I worked at one of MBB firms in the US for a couple of years, then moved to a corporate job at Fortune 50 company.
Five years after MBA my career stalled. Mostly because I am not good at office politics. I was not able to adjust to the US environment - socially, culturally, linguistically. I just cannot bullshit as fluently as Americans can do.
So, I quit.
I realized that I was never going to reach C-level in the corporate world. But I wanted to be rich.
I also know that I cannot be an entrepreneur. I have no product ideas, and I have no "passion" about any industry or business. My major was economics, and I have been doing Powerpoint slides all my professional life. I know nothing.
But I want to be rich.
I buy Megamillions tickets every week. I have not won anything, of course. Yet.
So couple of months ago, I met a friend who told me he day traded stocks and made $300 per day on average. I was very surprised because the guy did not have any business background.
I thought: if he can do it, maybe I can do it too? And do it better?
Also, at that time I watched the movie Big Short. I was impressed by those two guys who turned $100k into $130m. If they did it, maybe I can do it too?
Perhaps they were just lucky. But maybe I will be lucky too? After all, I won US green card in a lottery.
And compared with Megamillions there are higher odds of winning in trading.
That is how I decided to become a day trader.
I am a 35 years old cis-gender straight man born and raised in a poor Third World country. I did well academically in high school and got scholarship to study at a prestigious European university. After graduation I worked in management consulting, then got MBA from a top-10 school in US. After b-school I worked at one of MBB firms in the US for a couple of years, then moved to a corporate job at Fortune 50 company.
Five years after MBA my career stalled. Mostly because I am not good at office politics. I was not able to adjust to the US environment - socially, culturally, linguistically. I just cannot bullshit as fluently as Americans can do.
So, I quit.
I realized that I was never going to reach C-level in the corporate world. But I wanted to be rich.
I also know that I cannot be an entrepreneur. I have no product ideas, and I have no "passion" about any industry or business. My major was economics, and I have been doing Powerpoint slides all my professional life. I know nothing.
But I want to be rich.
I buy Megamillions tickets every week. I have not won anything, of course. Yet.
So couple of months ago, I met a friend who told me he day traded stocks and made $300 per day on average. I was very surprised because the guy did not have any business background.
I thought: if he can do it, maybe I can do it too? And do it better?
Also, at that time I watched the movie Big Short. I was impressed by those two guys who turned $100k into $130m. If they did it, maybe I can do it too?
Perhaps they were just lucky. But maybe I will be lucky too? After all, I won US green card in a lottery.
And compared with Megamillions there are higher odds of winning in trading.
That is how I decided to become a day trader.
And you can also end up with a -$15K istead of 0 like all of us
Go for it, life is short
What's your friend's background and training? How long has he been trading?
Heard about Jim Simons and Renaissance? One of the most profitable and successful hedge funds, they don't hire MBA or financial talents, they hire Ph.D in math, physics and the like.
"Of his 200 employees, ensconced in a fortress-like building in unfashionable Long Island, New York, a third have PhDs, not in finance, but in fields like physics, mathematics and statistics. Renaissance has been called “the best physics and mathematics department in the world” and, according to Weatherall, “avoids hiring anyone with even the slightest whiff of Wall Street bona fides.
— Sarfraz Manzoor, The Telegraph, 2013
So your just going to start trading and hope for the best? Have a trade plan? Have an edge?
I wouldn't be inspired to journal from that thread. I told him he was oversized in his trades when he had a huge day and basically it was just a lucky day. Asked about his size and stops and he said 1 percent, next thin he had a huge loss that went way past this 1 percent rule.
And the only trade setup I saw was this " entering on a bounce play" whatever that was and " could tell it wanted to go higher". No backtest, no trade sample to analyze even if it was discretionary, no trade plan, lack of understanding of probabilities and randomness. Worst is no plan on when to stop and re assess what he was doing.
I wouldn't be inspired to journal from that thread. I told him he was oversized in his trades when he had a huge day and basically it was just a lucky day. Asked about his size and stops and he said 1 percent, next thin he had a huge loss that went way past this 1 percent rule.
And the only trade setup I saw was this " entering on a bounce play" whatever that was and " could tell it wanted to go higher". No backtest, no trade sample to analyze even if it was discretionary, no trade plan, lack of understanding of probabilities and randomness. Worst is no plan on when to stop and re assess what he was doing.
