Complete Total Newb

[jkieffer 10]

Hello people my name is Jeremy. I am completely new to the whole day trading way of life. Im not actually trading at all yet. My plan is to learn as much as possible from reading this forum before i leap into the world of trading.

 

Im really not sure where to begin my research. Im quite familiar with forums and how to navigate them ect.

 

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I just want to learn from the ground up. Any links to other threads for newbs would be awesome. Thankyou

[chulaihuey 10]

Hi Jeremy,

Welcome to the wonderful world of day-trading.

There are way too many topics to list all of the things one needs to familiarize themselves with before going live in the markets. But, two things I feel are essential are:

• Creating a Trading Plan
  
• Learning to analyze price action
  

The internet is a treasure trove of knowledge, both good and bad. Half the fun is the search for the good info.

Best of luck.....

Barry

[Brookwood 10]

Hello Jeremy! If you are new to trading and NOT trading you are off to a good start. Just realize at the outset that it will take way more than this forum to make you a trader. Also, get over the idea of "leaping" into trading. You are beginning a long, arduous process and there are no shortcuts.You will probably blow out your first account, then your second if you have stuck it out that far. Then, when you find you are finally getting the hang of it you will face your most difficult obstacle: yourself. So, just start anywhere- you have to take it all in.

[dam5h 10]

when you think you are ready, i would open up the smallest reasonable micro fx account that you can. wait until up are consistent with that small account before risking any significant amount. i only suggest fx since you can trade small and not have to deal with pattern day trader rules. some may say to start with futures trading 1 lot and around 5 grand, which is feasible but you won't be able to scale and your entries will have to be excellent to have reasonable stop sizes. why overpay for your education if you don't have too? leverage is for advanced use only.

[Tradewinds 12]

My first question to you would be whether you want to use someone else's system for the basis of your trading, or do you want to create your own unique system. It's about whether you want to trust someone else's system, or you are the kind of person who must do it your way. That's a personality consideration.

The next thing I would advise you to do, is to make sure you have trading software, and a data feed that will allow you to to some good back-testing. It's not that back-testing is the perfect answer to trading, but at least it will give you an idea about whether your ideas about trading have any real value or not.

Third, don't expect other trader's to give you their hard earned trading secrets. They may point you in the direction that they think is the right direction, but that may be about it.

It's easy to spend massive amounts of time on a certain trading style or strategy, only to find out it just isn't working for you. So there is no substitute for the amount of time a person needs to invest in order to learn the trade.

Personally, I think that the concept of "opportunity costs" is critical to understand when trading. It's all about how you deal with taking a loss, and what you do when your order is loosing money. If you wait a long time to take a loss, and you could have made a couple of other trades in that time that you were waiting for your trade to come back from the loss, then you missed out on an opportunity. So there was an "opportunity cost". You not only lost money, but you lost out on a possibility to make another trade or two, and those trades could have actually made money. It's like a double loss.

There is the "technical" side of trading, . . . indicators and plot lines. Then there is the side of trading that deals with valuation, based upon a companies sales, balance sheet and profits. There is also the overall outlook of the economy. Day trading is really about the technical side of trading, the overall economic news, and news that deals with the particular stock you are trading.

If you want to avoid searching for a particular stock to trade, you can trade futures contracts. But whatever you decide to trade, make sure you learn it well.

You might be interested in the thread:

 

http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/208/breakthroughs-led-trading-improvement-success-9057-2.html#post110117

Edited January 31, 2011 by Tradewinds

[emazing 10]

Hi Jeremy,

 

I will be very honest with you, if you really want to learn how to day trade successfully, you have to sacrifice a >>>lot<<<. I blew out several trading accounts for over one year and I've lost a nice 6-figure trading. It was the most difficult task I've ever had to do in my live. After losing all this money, I studied day AND night learning everything I possibly can about intraday trading. I took a very large risk--learning to trade is nearly impossible.

 

Simply put, the odds are ALL against you. In today's day and age you are trading against very smart market makers that have ONE thing mind, TAKING ALL YOUR MONEY. On top of that, you are also competing against computers quant traders that develop special black box trading and algorithm systems. Trading against these giants puts the odds of succeeding greatly in their favor, not yours.

 

I really hope I'm not discouraging you, but I'm just being super realistic. Day trading successfully is only mastered by around 5% of all traders if not less. The rest lose all their money, maybe not today, or tomorrow, but eventually Wall Street takes it all. It is a game of who's smarter. In order to succeed, you need to think like a market maker. They are the scum of wall street, but they are VERY VERY smart people.

 

Again, I'm just being realistic with you. Are you really really sure you want to do this? If you are, you will devote your life learning all you can about it. You will learn day and night just as I did. You will buy all kinds of programs and systems, just to find out that the majority of it is junk. But if you can collect small pieces of information from several sources and combine it in to your own trading system, than you have a winner. You will try everything you'll learn, and you will fail a lot, until the day will come where it all makes sense. But know this Jeremy even if you study everything like a mad man, you may still never get the hang of it.

 

I know, sounds all pretty harsh, but I'm just being realistic.

 

Hope you will find what you're looking for Jeremy,

 

 

Best of luck!!

[TraderWill 11]

Hi Jeremy,

 

One of the first things you should do is learn how to read a chart. You can get a free demo account with many brokers and once you do install the free Metatrader charting package. Maybe spend some time in your local library and go through a basic book or two on technical analysis, and at some point I'd also suggest a book on trader psychology (Trading in the Zone is a good one). After you get the basics down and spend some time experimenting with the technical indicators included in Metatrader, then you can start looking for or coming up with your own daytrading strategies.

 

But continue to learn and don't be too eager to trade with real money, use a demo account instead. The markets will still be there when you've finished your trading education.

 

Good luck in your studies.

[Tams 20]

Hello people my name is Jeremy. I am completely new to the whole day trading way of life. Im not actually trading at all yet. My plan is to learn as much as possible from reading this forum before i leap into the world of trading.

 

Im really not sure where to begin my research. Im quite familiar with forums and how to navigate them ect.

 

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I just want to learn from the ground up. Any links to other threads for newbs would be awesome. Thankyou

 

put your money back into your pocket while you still have a chance...

[jkieffer 10]

Well thankyou so very much everyone for the warm welcome. I actually just went through and multiquote wrote a special thanks to everybody who has responded to my thread but must have timed out somehow and lost it. lol. Well like alot of you have mentioned how do you handle losses well im a bit used to it. I will do my best to go through again and thank all of you individually and express my gratitude. Have a fantastic evening everyone.

 

peace jkieffer

[doubletop11 10]

Maybe spend some time in your local library and go through a basic book or two on technical analysis, and at some point I'd also suggest a book on trader psychology (Trading in the Zone is a good one).

 

I agree with Will!

 

1. Get this book, Trading in the Zone, will really help you get started!

2. Learn your charting system and DOM well.

3. Learn Price Action. - from traders like Sam Seiden, Phil Newton, Al brooks

3a. Don't use indicators like RSI, MACD, ADX. they are all laggy and will get you looking at them more then what price is really doing!

3. Don't overtrade even when you are practicing on sim. (around 2 trades per market, per NY session)

4. Don't trade spot Forex

5. checkout babypips website for a lot of good basics that apply in all markets.

 

Best of Luck!

[Ingot54 13]

My plan is to learn as much as possible from reading this forum before i leap into the world of trading. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I just want to learn from the ground up.)

 

Welcome to the right place, Jeremy.

 

Make sure you are asking the right questions from this point forward.

 

Why do you want to trade?

 

This is the question you have to not only ask yourself ... you have to provide yourself with such a brutally honest answer that it is crystal clear, and ever before your eyes.

 

What are your goals?

 

Again - without a goal, you can't have a plan. And without a plan, you are consigning yourself to the most miserable 6 years you will ever experience in life ... opinion only.

 

What is your Personality Profile for trading?

 

In other words, are you suited to trading fast-moving instruments intra-day or do you prefer the stability of trending price? Do you prefer the Technical or the Fundamental information when making decisions?

 

What is your Risk Profile?

 

When you understand that, you will better understand whether trading really is for you at all. Or whether you are better suited to investing, than the instability of the trading voyage. Can you handle seeing 30% of your profits draw down, before bouncing back into profit? Or are you comfortable with a steady 5% improvement in the bottom line?

 

Almost every trading forum on the Internet has received thousands of posts just like yours. And yes, it is a humble and inquiring post, simply asking for guidance.

 

Tams has said:

 

put your money back into your pocket while you still have a chance...

and he does not say that without very good reason.

 

We are told that up to 95% of beginning traders will be out of the markets without their money within 12 months. Now I am unsure about that, but I do know that after 12 months I had blown up my first $15k account. I would have taken Tams advice at that point, had I been able to read it then :crap:

 

The point is - in all seriousness - that you have to examine whether this is a road you really want to go down. The people who are warning you to reconsider, are not unintelligent or nasty. They simply understand from rugged experience exactly the journey that is ahead of you. The markets WILL humble even the most intelligent participant - remember Longterm Capital Management?

 

Long-Term Capital Management

 

Try to read it in full to get a picture of what lies ahead for the invincible trader.

 

My personal advice is to investigate, but not commit without getting more information about these things. I applaud your enterprise, however, Jeremy, and that in itself places you ahead of many wannabe's who never get past the dream of improving their lot.

 

The best information I can give you right now, is to answer the above questions, and then seek along the lines of the answers.

 

Meanwhile, please ask Tams for his "long answer" - he is notoriously terse, and has to be drawn a little to give his best response. I suppose as a successful trader, I would expect his advice would still be valid and valuable to you at the end of the next 6 years.

 

PS - don't accept his next answer - which I expect will be to repeat simply his first one!!!

Work on him a little

[macrovector 10]

Hi Jeremy,

In addition to all the good advice you received, you might want to visit a few trading rooms just to get a feel of what day trading is like. You can usually get a free trial for a few days with most trading rooms.

Good luck!

[one53brooklane 10]

Thank you for your post Jeremy. I am also very new to trading and have not yet begun. I'm interested in learning about the Emini SP and the other replies you have received have also been very helpful to me.

 

Thank you and good luck!

[doubletop11 10]

I am also very new to trading and have not yet begun. I'm interested in learning about the Emini SP

 

The ES is way to choppy for day trading at the beginning. There is not enough profit for me to daytrade it. I believe that for beginning traders should stay away from the ES. There's a HUGE racket for beginning traders to start there. They preach stability of index, volume, futures baahbahbah. I'm all about futures no doubt but alot of it is marketing about the ES. I started there and found out the hard way. It made me become a price action trader, dependant on no indicators but price and S/R level drawing after I lost $1,500 then started to say, what's really going on here. There are so many participants in the ES that you can't really hold a day position for an extended amount of time unless you really know the underlying ways and reasons the markets work and can swing trade it on a daily bases. I don't believe that the ES gives you the profit margins that other markets can. If you know how to swing trade and can do it profitability, then do it on the ES. However, if you looking to get 2-4pts a day and scalp your way to a living or riches. I believe your in for a rude awaking. If you do get training for a good company that really teaches your the correct way to look at the markets they don't teach the the ES first off from what I've heard. If you look at the Euro compared to the ES for daytrading, the range is so much more and I make so much more money on the Euro(6E), Russell(TF), Oil, and Bonds (ZN) day in and day out that a 10 points daily range on the ES seems like a totally newbie trap to me. It makes me laugh because I see lots of 1000 contracts going through and the market doesn't even move hardly. The new daytraders are being rug out by the big boys. So I would say forsure that big money is behind it all. Big marketing, big masses, big companies, and big Sharks. That's just my opinion.

[TimRacette 11]

put your money back into your pocket while you still have a chance...

 

I'd have to second Tams, both in a joking fashion and in reality. Look at it from this point of view, take a step back for a second and ask yourself what your end goal is. Is it to be financially free, work on your own schedule, be your own boss? Most people would answer yes, and in turn become a trader, HOWEVER, there are other methods of income out there that can create truly passive income. Income generated whether you work on not, small business systems that run themselves, turn-key businesses such as a franchise.

 

There's a great book by Timothy Ferris called The 4-hr work week, it's a little out there, you have to really expand your mind, but it's a phenomenal book that touches on all the key points to creating a passive income.

 

If you can create a passive income stream to cover your expenses and lifestyle then your journey as a trader may be much more successful and rewarding. You have an advantage in that your just beginning, you can 'map out' your life path so to speak, granted things never go according to plan, at least if you have a plan you will end up better off than not having a plan.

 

Best of luck!

[chartwaves 10]

Hi Jeremy, I think you would be a lot better off to just forget about day trading in the beginning, and take a look at the longer time frames. There is plenty of money to be made simply getting on board in established trends that could last for weeks/months at a time. I personally would recommend trading ETF's because you are putting your money in a "basket of stocks" all bundled together and has less of a chance of gapping violently or failing all together. Other advantages to these are liquidity and the ability to invest in one sector or an entire stock index. The absolute key thing is to take it slow in the beginning and place small bets, and set stop loss orders that you can actually live with, because they will get tripped and they will get tripped often (hopefully not more than 50% of the time ). You need to also understand that trading is not as much about predicting the future of price, but its more about managing risk and information on the chart. Stay safe and be very very careful, the markets are a dangerous place.