Good evening!
I am currently a trader in training - all self taught at this point. I have a full time job as a chemist but aspire to be a full time trader within the next two years. Due to the pattern day trader requirements and settlement times I am focusing my training on day and swing trading options from a cash account. All (or almost all) of my trading thus far has been paper trading, though I have been actively managing my IRA and have done some short term swing trades in that account.
Most of my options paper trading has been in SPY, GLD, AAPL, AMZN, and FSLR. I have focused on these because they tend to provide decent profit opportunities most days, have a very liquid options market and thus have manageable spreads (usually). For the most part I trade on technicals only, focusing on bounces and break outs off strong support and resistance, as well as momo trades.
Moving forward, I am currently focusing primarily on three things - 1) discipline - plan my trade and trade my plan, 2) strategy development - identifying the best co-indicators to help with entry and exit signals, and 3) options master list - creating a diverse group of 40-50 stocks/etfs with liquid options markets and tight spreads.
I realize that paper trading is not an effective way to learn to trade live. However, it has helped me learn how options markets move, has illustrated some of the pitfalls of options like volatility crush, loss to the bid-ask spread, etc, and provided a rough understanding of how to use options greeks to my advantage.
As I said above I am completely self-taught, the world of finance scared the hell out of me and I took no interest in it. However, I was sick of busting my ass 9-5 every week day and getting flat returns (or negative inflation-adjusted) and have always had my mind on finding a job that would reward me, rather than the owner or CEO, for my input. I started managing my IRA actively earlier this year and when I did I realized that understanding the markets does not require an econ degree or an MBA or a CPA or anything else aside from desire to learn. And learn I have, with an absolute mountain of learning still ahead. Hopefully these forums can help me up.
Thanks!
