Any Day Traders? Need Advice
 

I have the idea to learn day trading to make big money. Well, OK just to make a profit will be fine. Does anyone here have experience? I noticed the Market Closed/ Sandy thread the other day, got me to thinking... any info here?
If anyone has any positive experience, please let me know. I'm sure there are horror stories about I know a guy who's brother in law's friend lost a lot of money... But has anyone here had any personal good experience?
I need to know where to start. Who to study, what to read, etc. Any forums to check out? (I know, not as cool as this one... ) Will I need a big pile of money to get started? Please let me know.. thanks.

If you are asking it about it here, you almost certainly should not. I'm not trying to be mean, just honest.

I have day traded. Its not some easy breezy thing where you sit on your ass and play Madden football and make money. You lock yourself in front of a computer screen(screens actually) , and absorb world news like a sponge. The guys that are good are not BS talking big shots. They're information geeks. Even then its a damn crap shoot. Earthquake puts one factory offline someplace in Taiwan, and you get creamed. Its a not a poor mans game, fo sho.

There are at least two day traders on OT

Their advice is always the same, and mirrors what Hard Drive posted

Risk/reward..... people underestimate the risk part

I have an undergraduate degree in economics, a law degree, a wife who has an MBA and is an executive at a Fourtune 100 company, and 20 years experience representing people and companies that include hedge funds and venture capital. So I think I'm relatively well positioned to give you good advice.

Based on my experience, education and training, I can tell you that day trading is a very bad idea. You will lose your money. Everyone selling a stock is betting that it will go down. Everyone buying it is betting that it will go up. Both can't be right. The one who is right is the one with the better information.

You do not have access to the information that will tell you what stock is a good buy or a bad deal. You just don't. Unless you have the ability to obtain raw financial data from a company and crunch the numbers yourself, evaluate the company's self-reporting sales and profits forcasts independently, and evaluate the larger trends that will affect that company's stock, you are guessing. You may guess right, you may guess wron, but you will be guessing. And you will be guessing into the face of men who are armed with super computers who do this for a living.

I have saved a modest amount of money. Most of it is tied up in my wife's comany's stock because we get a discount on a certain amount of stock and it's a good company. The rest is in retirement accounts - Fortune 500, Dow and NASDQ index funds. Yes, even the largest fund managers fail to beat the major stock indexes over time.

Do not try this at home. Just don't do it.

just in case you didn't get it the first time....:)

Here is a show you should watch, if you haven't yet:

Million Dollar Traders (Full Series 1 of 3) - YouTube
Million Dollar Traders (Full Series 2 of 3) - YouTube
Million Dollar Traders (Full Series 3 of 3) - YouTube

Someone here asked about a year ago how they could make $150k year trading.

The sobering answer was if you want to make $150k while averaging a 10% return (which you'd be doing really well and would have the knowledge to not ask your original question) then figure out how much money you need to put into the market.

Do the math.

Is it jyl and trader220? I think they're involved somehow

Yes, that's my job (stock market).

Guy I work with is a day trader. He does ok with it but its his world...

If you can not be emotionally attached to your money, then go for it. It won't work if you mind losing money. Your better off going to the track.

Be prepared to put a ****e load of time into it - to the point where your partner/family buggers off because you don't pay them any attention anymore.

Research, a frickin lot, or you'll miss a bargain in a heart beat.

You need enough money to buy in volume - and not nickle and dime stuff. Stick to your buy/sell limits. Don't get emotionally attached to your stocks.

I did it for a while. Made some money from it but not enough to compensate for the change in family life. Maybe one day I'll do it again. Still have a portfolio, just run it different now.

I'll add my voice to the choir.

No matter how much you learn about day trading, there are others who will have learned more and who are betting against you.

I don't know of anyone who has made any meaningful money day trading. You are much better off just putting you money in a low load index fund.

Hit the markets, but more as an investor. Buy some stocks and keep them for a few months or a few years and watch them everyday. What affects them and by how much. The latest employments stats, they move up of down by 1% or will it be 3% and then have a fresh think about becoming a day trader


The more I learn the more I realise I wouldn't have a chance as a day trader. And I've been buying and selling stocks since I was a little boy.

Easy.

Buy low, sell high :D

I had a friend back in high school and her dad was a day trader. He committed suicide in 2001 after He lost everything. He was a good guy, it was very sad.

Day trading, funny you asked, been there done that, also way back before computers, was a commodities trader, margin calls really suck big bannanas.
You have to place your line in the sand and when it goes past the line, you are done.

Fast forward almost 20 yrs later and the tech boom was on, easy money. Yes, I did plenty of paper trades and read everything I could get my hands on, actually joined a group that Tokyo Joe ran and believe it or not had reasonable success with the group, he ran a slick scam on the markets. Living on the west coast I was up late at night and early to rise to be ahead of the opening in NY. It took its toll on my family and my health and I was actually thinking I could quit my real job and do this for aliving, HAHAHAHHAAHAHA

So, we are now into the bubble popping and I had a sure naked short trade, licking my chops but not being greedy. I get a call from my clearing house and they tell me they are going to take my short shares away because a bigger trader wants them. I tell them to take a hike and they tell me NP, we will let you keep them alittle longer and make me suffer more. In the next few weeks the stock didn't keep dropping but went up. I got the call and the guy on the other end laughed at me asking me if I learned my lesson. Zero sum game, someone wins someone losses. Problem is its rigged for the house.

I closed all my accounts and threw everything into gold and silver which at the time was 230.00 and 3.75 :D. I now sleep at night.

I always remember a quote from Jesse Livermore, a famous stock trader who made millions and also lost millions " in a bull market for anything make your decision and take your position waiting out the walls of disbelief until optimism becomes as rampant as was the disbelief. You then take your profit at a point of rational satisfaction and NEVER LOOK BACK."

Oh, also I found my way to invest with Bernie, he sucked his share, O'well, easy come easy go.

Good luck, have lots of money, get the best trading platform and its not E Trade or Scottrade, study everything you can get your hands on and when you are ready step into the arena with full confidence in your ability and kick some ass. I would think 150K to start should be enough, remember pigs get fat but hogs get slaughtered.

I've heard that as bulls and bears make money, pigs get slaughtered.

Besides echoing the advice already given - it's harder than appears (I've been a portfolio manager and trader for about 12 years and another 6 as an analyst), some things to think about:

What are you going to trade? stocks, ETFs, futures, options, fx, commodities...

How long are you going to hold? strictly day trade without holding overnight?

Leverage?

More as a hobby or to replace current source of income?

Family constraints? Not fun having to take care of a screaming 3 year old in the middle of a trade.

Trying it out with a "paper portfolio" is not a good proxy for how you will do with real money. The hardest part of trading is the constant questioning of when to enter and exit a position and doing it on paper does not have the same emotional attachment.

That's easy! Start with $300k. You'll have 150k in no time. SmileWavy