CHRISTO9HER
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Physics is one of the toughest (mathematically speaking) subjects that you can do. It also gives you skills in modelling and programming that are useful in trading. However, I think that Masquerade probably emphasised the Physics thing a little too strongly if anything. There are plenty of traders who didnt study physics
Your enthusiasm is fantastic and will stand you in good stead as you start off in this journey to becoming a trader. If you are serious about it then you now need to turn your attention to the following steps, which detail my opinion about how a beginner should proceed into the trading world.
1. Reading: You need to read quite a few books, although you can partially make up for this with reading the best posts on here. Different people will recommend different books, but hopefully most would agree that the list might involve the following:
Market Wizards 1 & 2, Trading in the zone, technical analysis of the financial markets, other people will add to this. Also read "the financial spread betting guidebook" if you decide to go down the SB route. You maybe need to set aside a couple of hundred quid for these books (maybe look out for second hand?), but dont worry, think of this couple of hundred quid as money you would have lost if you had gone steaming in anyway, (I know I did, as will the guy who kept buying HBOS yesterday but didnt know why).
2. Personalisation: You will need at some point to make some decisions about:
* What instrument(s) you want to trade: FX, equities, bonds, futures, etc etc. I am biased towards FX but you need to decide for yourself.
* What time frame you want to trade on. This is an important one. Do you want to sit in front of your screen all day (short time frames) or do you want to just trade for an hour or so at the end of the day (long term trendfollowing). The shorter the time frame, the more potential there is for higher profit, but it is probably harder to do and definitely more time consuming. You could "swing trade" which means that you would be doing something in between, and holding your positions for a few days.
* How are you going to place the trades? Spread betting may be a good option for you.
3. Getting to grips with the market: Once step 2 is done, you need to learn everything about your specific market. This means getting a data-feed, (free for FX, maybe not for others unless end of day), and studying the market movements. Look at the way the moving averages behave, look at the general behaviour of the market. What is driving the price? What (if anthing) can give you a good indication of what it may do? What effect does unexpected news have on the price?
4. Developing a methodology: Not a rigid mechanical system, but a methodology. Look at some very basic ones, eg. Can the 10 period MA crossing the 50 period MA tell you anything? At this point you will start to get some ideas about what may work. Write them down in as much detail as possible. Write down: entry criteria, exit criteria etc. Then you can move on to step 5.
5. Paper trading: (trading under real conditions with non-real money). This is your chance to put some of the systems you found in part 4 into practise. Even when paper trading, take it seriously, stick to the methodology and record the result. Remember, if a trade loses money, it want a bad trade unless you cant justify why you did it. If it was part of your methodology, it was a great trade.
6. Real trading. Only proceed to stage 6, when you are consistently profitable at stage 5. You should have a clearly defined methodology that you are pretty sure has a positive ecpectancy over a large number of trades.
Note that the only things that you should be paying money for at any stage are books and possibly data. No miracle systems, no signal generators, no nothing.
Take your time with steps 1, 2, 3, 4, they are important and will save you money later on. The quicker you rush through these early steps the more you will lose later. Steps 1-4 may take you up to 4 to 6 months of hard work, its worth it. Step 5 should take the same again really. Then you can move onto step 6 after a year or so with the confidance to succeed and you may be one of the few who is a winner from the start!!
I really hope that this helps you, I wouldnt normally write such a detailed reply to anyone but for some reason from reading your posts I felt like helping you out.
In return I want you to introduce me to 5 dirty air hostesses who are up for a gangbang.
Good luck mate
Chris
