What was your journey as a trader?

R

rin4et

I'm interested in hearing how you got started into trading?

We all know trading takes a lot of time, money, discipline, etc. What were your struggles as a Trader? What obstacles did you have to overcome on your road to success? What psychological barriers did you have to overcome?

How much did trading cost you in terms of time and money. What about opportunity costs?

How did you deal with failure? Did you consider giving up?

What were the breakthroughs? What lessons did you learn?

What did your journey consist of? Was it worth it for you in the end? What types of struggles did you encounter not only with trading but in your own life that reflected your passion to succeed as a trader?

It takes a lot to be a successful trader and it usually comes with more than just trading. I would love to hear how it all began for someone, what was done to make it happen, did you fail but never gave up, learned from that failure and came back that much better? Did it effect your personal life at all?

Hoping to read some great inspiring stories
 
The Fall 2008 housing market crisis awakened me to this new world.
It was virtually hard to ignore back then...Huge headlines were all over the place. everyday. o_O

All I recall was seeing huge % go up and down daily,...I was kind of Hooked immediately...to learn...how to potentially capture those moves, and grow an account, and my wealth,
(all i knew back then was put your money in a bank. and be Happy with that 1% they were paying you.)

Money, not so much. I had a tiny retail acct back then. I slightly grew, but lost a significant amount (all typical rookie mistakes) ...then pulled out. and just studied and studied and paper traded in my mind on the sidelines.
Time...alot, alot of time I have spent studying/just Staring/following/thinking about the general collective market as a whole. everyday.

The movies Trading Places, Wall St, Rogue Trader, Other People's Money, Boiler Room, Ruthless People, Mr Destiny, Pelham 123, etc etc all really moved me.
And basically any movie about finance/money directly or indirectly.

Great retail traders like Dan Zanger, Tim Sykes, Japanese traders CIS and BNF...really moved me as well.
If one man can do it...Another can do it as well.

Failure, or potential failure, was lying down in bed in a fetal position ...just staring at a wall or floor while buzzed,

Breakthrough kind of happened when I realized I can't treat the market like a dumb average casino gambler just pissing away money,
I needed to think more like an Army General,

All of your life choices affect everything else. everything is a chain reaction.
Mazal tov,
 
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"I'm interested in hearing how you got started into trading?"

<<< I was in Army and bored as hell, hung around Merrill Lynch office in downtown before work and "grandpa" aged men were teaching their fundamentals and I started drawing charts by hand almost 40 years ago. It was too expensive to be a trader back then at $125 for 100 shares, so for a good ten years I was longer term. Biggest mistake I ever did was get into day trading, it cost me seven incredible years for longer term as I was losing everything I did long term and another $100k over course of 7 years to learn day trading, and even then I thought it was luck for another five years thereafter of being profitable. Always doubting my abilities that I could make money at scalping.

"psychological barriers"

<<<Many many many, the horrible doubting of self, the lies one tells themselves, favorite saying "I am so close" and next day throw it into fireplace and watch it burn baby burn you rotten s.o.b., promises to God that if I could just figure out one thing I would go to church more......if you make it past this stage, you develop a real weird personality, and if you succeed in what you consider is success you look at the skies and say to God "That's all it took"? Yea, you might get like a personality that you overcame something, but other people don't have a clue about life, hard to explain.

"How much did trading cost you in terms of time and money. What about opportunity costs?"

I really lost track at the time, taking it out of one account to feed other account, and don't really want to know even though so many years later, I have made it up much more. I know the bank loans was $105k, was so stubborn, just plain dumb for being a Russian/Irishman.

"How did you deal with failure? Did you consider giving up?"

I never see failure as most do, I see them as opportunities to do it another way. Giving up was never taught growing up in my family....

"What were the breakthroughs? What lessons did you learn?"

Bite the bullet and learned how to program, always keep open mind but always backtest.

I have learned a great deal about myself, usually all my weaknesses first, not a very happy journey, you get to see how really childhood was so f'cked up, strict Catholic and extremely poor economic upbringing, you are tight with the buck then, but you see as you age, that was your modeling for business and eventually trading markets for the best.

The game is very addictive, always on my mind in some form, even when I am with a date, I slip into what I rather be doing, have been able to turn it off for couple weeks at a time since all is on automation now, but eventually that time off gave me 100 new ideas to have tested out.
 
I started while at NYU in 1980-82. I had a very small account ($2500) and traded small cap OTC stocks. Made a little money but realized I was on the wrong side of the trade. I became an intern at a small NASDAQ dealer that was bought by a small regional broker in NYC. I worked on their trading desk. They made markets in around 200 hundred NASAQ stocks. I was an unpaid intern but they sponsored me for my Series 7. They then allowed me to bring on accounts for commission only. I had very few.


When I graduated NYU undergrad, I entered NYU Grad School at night. That head trader warned me that if I stayed, I would be wasting my time as they would likely never add a second trader. I tried cold calling at ML for 3 months and hated it. I wanted to be a trader. I found a job on the floor of the AMEX in November 1982. My boss asked me why I wanted to be on the floor if I had a college degree and was in grad school. I told him I wanted to learn to trade equites and options. He hired me as an institutional wire clerk for off floor option traders. He told me he would start me at $200/week cash and “if I make it” to year end, would pay me $250/week on the books. BTW, that was less than my salary at ML, but I was living at home so I did not care. I was able to make money on the side by coming in early and doing trade breaks for traders that did not want to get to work at 7:30am. I was able to make about $700/month cash that way.


I had to learn the business very fast including option spread terminology, hand signals, policies and procedure on the floor. Everything was manual and moved very fast. The floor was VERY busy. In 84’ at 23 years old, they made me their floor broker executing the trades. In that year, the small firm I worked for when through a management change. Even though I was good at my job, I was not bringing in business. They fired me New Year’s Eve at 4:30, just after the market closed. I was just married in September and used all my savings to buy a Condo in Queens. My wife, who was taking a few classes that were needed before she entered a grad school program, had to drop out and get a job to support us.


I always wanted to trade and run my own business, but to be honest, I was not financially nor mentally ready yet. I need one more year to get my MBA at night. All my savings were in the condo. The same way I got thrown into the fire as a wire clerk, I did the same with trading, I borrowed $30,000 from my parents, got registered with the SEC for my BD, leased a seat at the AMEX and opened an account at Spear Leeds and Kellogg (SLK-they were bought by GS years later). I was now 24 years old and running my own business. I knew options cold. I legged into option strategies as clerk and broker and knew what to do. Unfortunately, the only seat lease I could afford allowed me to only trade index options. I went in to the XMI crowd, the biggest on the floor. I had to scalp and could not hedge. My hands would sweet with each trade. I was able to make enough net to replicate my salary. Yes, at that time, bigger than $250/week. About $2500/month. Not a lot of money, but good for 1984.


In summer of 1985, I had been scalping for about 6 months in XMI when the exchanges added options on NASDAQ stocks like Apple. Because NASDAQ was a rigged market where MM controlled the spreads on stocks and other traders and customers were not able to bid and offer the way they could on the NYSE, the experienced option trades would not make markets in the new NASDAQ symbols as hedging was too hard. The exchange allowed the index permit holder to make markets in these new options. I started in the Apple crowd on day one and stayed in that crowed for 25 years. I bought the permit I was on, converted it to an option membership and then converted that to a full membership. I also bought a small part of two other seats and leased the out with my parents. And yes, I paid them back before year end, all that I borrowed. They made a lot of money leasing those seats.


I went over 6 years without a losing month. Until my capital based built up, I only legged into riskless spreads, the same way my clients did when I was a wire clerk and then broker. I loved the floor and still miss that and the friends I made there. I was not the best trader I the world. I understood my edge, managed my risk and supported my family running my own business for a long time. Then the edge was gone. Too many option exchanges. To many orders with price discovery off floor and then crossed. The business had changed and now required a lot of capital to have much less edge. It was time to move on.


I hope that was not too long, but you asked.

Bob
 
Handle123 said:
The game is very addictive, always on my mind in some form, even when I am with a date,
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Heheh. Never a good sign when a man starts thinking that the sex was good, almost as good as having the emini go your way for ten points. I am sure no one here ever thought that.

:cool:
 
I became a broker in the early 90s after seeing some of the older guys from my neighborhood all of a sudden driving nice cars became a cold caller then a broker over the summer after my second year of college started making money never went back to finish school.(BIG MISTAKE) After about a year realized this was a scam then went to work for a legit firm because I was hooked on the market after some time I started working on a trading desk making markets in otc bb stocks then Nasdaq stocks . Then the Nasdaq and all the crazy internet stocks bubble burst the money I was making wasn't the same got divorced and moved back to ny then decided I was good enough to work for a prop firm had a good run there till December 2007 then a major family tragedy happened so I just kind of gave up never returned to work after that. I went into some kind of crazy depression for a long period then the woman who is my wife now opened an etrade account and lost a lot of money then one day asked me if I could help her out and in 2009 started trading for myself and her funny thing is this is what finally got me out of my depressed state so now its almost like trading saved me . We have had many ups and downs but in an average year we do pretty well living in nyc.As far as what it took to get here a few months of holy shit how are we making the bills and a lot of work not 40 hours a week but sleepless nights going over past trades and always searching for an edge. This can be the most rewarding work or the most miserable sometimes all in the same week.One thing I think that is really important is doing the work yourself not relying on other peoples opinions or ideas and most importantly study all of your past trades and mistakes you will learn a lot more from your bad trades .
 
hmcp said:
I became a broker in the early 90s after seeing some of the older guys from my neighborhood all of a sudden driving nice cars became a cold caller then a broker over the summer after my second year of college started making money never went back to finish school.(BIG MISTAKE) After about a year realized this was a scam then went to work for a legit firm because I was hooked on the market after some time I started working on a trading desk making markets in otc bb stocks then Nasdaq stocks . Then the Nasdaq and all the crazy internet stocks bubble burst the money I was making wasn't the same got divorced and moved back to ny then decided I was good enough to work for a prop firm had a good run there till December 2007 then a major family tragedy happened so I just kind of gave up never returned to work after that. I went into some kind of crazy depression for a long period then the woman who is my wife now opened an etrade account and lost a lot of money then one day asked me if I could help her out and in 2009 started trading for myself and her funny thing is this is what finally got me out of my depressed state so now its almost like trading saved me . We have had many ups and downs but in an average year we do pretty well living in nyc.As far as what it took to get here a few months of holy shit how are we making the bills and a lot of work not 40 hours a week but sleepless nights going over past trades and always searching for an edge. This can be the most rewarding work or the most miserable sometimes all in the same week.One thing I think that is really important is doing the work yourself not relying on other peoples opinions or ideas and most importantly study all of your past trades and mistakes you will learn a lot more from your bad trades .
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Good Luck on your journey!
 
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