Where does the newb start?

johnstac · Aug 2, 2012

I am a newb. Not in its purest sense as I have traded on and off for years but the only reason it was on and off was to recoup losses.

If your friend came into the market today with your $25K and no experience and insisted on trading something, what would you tell him to begin learning? There are many choices. Are there any that are easier to learn then others?

oldtime · Aug 2, 2012

Quote from johnstac:

I am a newb. Not in its purest sense as I have traded on and off for years but the only reason it was on and off was to recoup losses.

If your friend came into the market today with your $25K and no experience and insisted on trading something, what would you tell him to begin learning? There are many choices. Are there any that are easier to learn then others?

what are planning on trading? Stocks? Forex? Commodities? ES? Options?

oldtime · Aug 2, 2012

otherwise, I try to be nice to other brokers, but the min at interctive is 10k, so you have that covered, and that's who I would open with.

Plan on paper trading for 6 months

to each his own, but 25k is more than enough to trade forex at ib

start with just 25k units.

forex is very simple

the problem with other vehicles is 25k can be a little tight

ag spreads are also cheap

ask more specific questions and you will get better answers

not many make it trading ES regardless of how much they start with

Wide Tailz · Aug 2, 2012

Quote from johnstac:

If your friend came into the market today with your $25K and no experience and insisted on trading something, what would you tell him to begin learning?

1. Deposit $5k with Thinkorswim / TDA so you can open a sim account

2. Pick up Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom, by Tharp

3. Follow the instructions in the book

4. Back test whatever ideas come up

5. Gamble away (lose) the $5k to respect risk management and the need for a system

6. When the sim account / back testing shows something that makes money, reload the account with another $5k and go live.

7. Rinse and repeat.

BlueTurtle · Aug 2, 2012

For 20,000 i can teach you what no book will ever print!!

The secret to trading. It has never been discussed here.

I have been perfecting this method for decades.

Then, take the 5,000 left and open up a sim account.

i will chat with you for up to one month after my training.

Then, and most important, get more money:

Because my part 2 course is 10,000 and it teaches the most important rules of all.....

JuniorCTA · Aug 2, 2012

Quote from johnstac:

I am a newb. Not in its purest sense as I have traded on and off for years but the only reason it was on and off was to recoup losses.

If your friend came into the market today with your $25K and no experience and insisted on trading something, what would you tell him to begin learning? There are many choices. Are there any that are easier to learn then others?

You might want to start by not trading at all for 1-2 years. Just pay for real-time/historical data and play with that until you find something that makes you confident enough to actually risk capital.

mcgene4xpro · Aug 2, 2012

Quote from JuniorCTA:

You might want to start by not trading at all for 1-2 years. Just pay for real-time/historical data and play with that until you find something that makes you confident enough to actually risk capital.

Excellent advice for all newbies

oraclewizard77 · Aug 2, 2012

1) Spend $ 5,000 - $ 8, 000 on a mentor.

Or, put $ 5,000 - $ 10,000 in a brokerage account, start trading. When you blow up, put the rest in.

2) If you are lucky, in a few years you will learn to trade before losing the rest of your money.

Good luck.

oldtime · Aug 2, 2012

Quote from oraclewizard77:

1) Spend $ 5,000 - $ 8, 000 on a mentor.

Or, put $ 5,000 - $ 10,000 in a brokerage account, start trading. When you blow up, put the rest in.

2) If you are lucky, in a few years you will learn to trade before losing the rest of your money.

Good luck.

the number one reason for failure is undercapitalization, why double your chances by only going half in?

better advice is open with 25k and paper trade until you have 50k

mcgene4xpro · Aug 3, 2012

Quote from oldtime:

the number one reason for failure is undercapitalization, why double your chances by only going half in?

better advice is open with 25k and paper trade until you have 50k

I think the number one reason of failure is trading without an EDGE.

If you have an edge, so trade with real money.

The edge has to be based on defined roles with consistent profits proved for long time and/or large number of trades ( for me 1-2 years with more than 10000 trades)

Once you have it on demo, you can go to real.

I believe undercapitalization has a very minimal role in this business. There are reputable brokers you can play starting with only 1$ and open with only 1$ deposit account such as Oanda. Conceivably, if you start small, you will take longer to double your account. This is the only disadvantage of starting small.

Some might say, and i relatively agree with them, start with real but very small to fasten your learning curve. Blow up some small accounts ( hundreds of $) and learn fast.

in short, EDGE , EDGE , EDGE