First Post, New Trader, Help Wanted!

[NickTW]

Phoenix,

Fair questions. Let me elaborate a little on my situation.

1) I don't currently trade anything. Recent college grad, discovered a passion for finance soon after graduating college (management degree) and switched into that career path. Took a job as:

2) A trading liaison/salesman on a small bond trading desk. I help the trader with a lot of the mundane details, but have no say, input, or insight into the positions the trader takes. I've only been in the business about 6 months now - long enough to get my Series 7/63 and step more into a salesman role. Still young (24), and still trying to learn everything I can, and the equities market is something that really appeals to me for whatever reason. Trading seems to be a natural progression into learning more about how markets act - and as a result help me in my current job (the bond market and equity market appear to behave very similarly in most situations) and also allow me pursue a growing interest.

Hope that clarifies things a little...

[smwinc]

	Quote:	NickTW
	Thanks for the post smw - seems like a really valid point. I noticed in the link you gave that Bonnie mentions that ensign allows you to replay trading days. Maybe that'd allow a bit of a hybrid approach for my current situation - swing trading with real money to work on money management/psychological aspects, and replay parts of a random trading day to get the repetition and practice in the evenings. I'm assuming the strategies used by day traders are similar to swing-trading, just on a different time frame - can anyone confirm/deny that assumption?

Yes, Ensign is a charting package that allows for replaying of trading data (among other things).

Others may have other suggestions, however in my opinion I would ditch the position/swing trading. Is it something that is much easier to move into once you understand how a market works intra day.

money management / trading methodology intra day is completely different to position trading/swing trading.

It is common to want to make money while you learn to trade, however the blunt reality is that the focus really needs to be on losing money slowly.

I would suggest:

1. Work out your goals. What do you want to achieve.
e.g. move into a trading position, trade your own capital, etc.

2. Choose a market

3. Practice trading it. Learn everything you can about that market. Ideally a market where, if you are choosing to trade your own capital, something where degrees of leverage are available.

E.g. studying the S&P 500. You can trade the SPY minimum size share lot to significantly reduce any chance of blowing your account. When suitable, you can then trade the S&P 500 e-mini contract.

The general way people fail in trading is trying to go head-on into it trying to trade too many things, under capitalised & overconfident. Avoid that and you should be fine.

[DbPhoenix]

	Quote:	NickTW
	Phoenix, Fair questions. Let me elaborate a little on my situation. 1) I don't currently trade anything. Recent college grad, discovered a passion for finance soon after graduating college (management degree) and switched into that career path. Took a job as: 2) A trading liaison/salesman on a small bond trading desk. I help the trader with a lot of the mundane details, but have no say, input, or insight into the positions the trader takes. I've only been in the business about 6 months now - long enough to get my Series 7/63 and step more into a salesman role. Still young (24), and still trying to learn everything I can, and the equities market is something that really appeals to me for whatever reason. Trading seems to be a natural progression into learning more about how markets act - and as a result help me in my current job (the bond market and equity market appear to behave very similarly in most situations) and also allow me pursue a growing interest. Hope that clarifies things a little...

Well, assuming that there's no one there who'd be willing to act as a "mentor", much less a coach (even if you'd want that from anybody there), don't be embarrassed to take baby steps. If you're interested in the equities market, at least in part because it appears to behave in a similar fashion to the bond market, then consider an ETF that's equity-based, such as the QQQQ, DIA, or SPY. You won't have to devote your weekends and evenings to stock research, you won't have to sweat out those portions of the day when you can't watch whatever it is you traded (you're going to have difficulty getting a feel for how the market behaves if you're not there), and you can trade any of these just as you'd trade their e-mini equivalents, in the event you ever want to try futures; that is, you can daytrade them (which I do not recommend), swing trade them, or take positions in them. Plus the amount you risk can be much smaller, and you can scale in and out of positions, if that appeals to you.

[doji]

Just my opinion... there are no easy / beginners markets, everyone out there is trying to take your money. The previous posts suggest to start with swing trading and work your way into day trading. Great suggestions, however the pace of swing trading versus day trading are completely different. Please keep in mind that swing trading allows you to make decisions and analyize your positions after market hours. With day trading decisions must be made on the fly. Paper trading is a must until you are comfortable with the order types, and by all means have a trading plan and stick with your plan until you are disciplined enough to follow your rules. Good luck