Losing my job...Is this a good thing.

[goose4]

Ok.Let me give you a little synopsis of my background.When I was 21 I tried to be a pro trader on futures,also another attempt at 25,both lasting around two years,my funds frizzled out gradually.I had no proper money management and my own ideology of trading which when looking back I dont know how I made two years on each attempt,I guess a bit of luck and madness....My ego was a huge fault in me being a good trader.I fully understand what Melancholy is about.

Well by the end of next month I will loose my job,im 31 one now.I appreciate what the ethos is in making 20% in a year,thats a good figure for a hedge fund.I have saved up 80000 pound and thinking (certain,LOL.I must be insane) of returning being a full time trader.This time doing this properly.I need to be making on average 2000 pound clean per month.Im not sure whether my capital is at the desirable level (that 20% concerns me)

Also not sure what niche to enter,do I go for stocks,forex or futures???

Another thing I need to find a good system ? dont know how to start??

This has been a long journey for me,I loved trading and working on my own,it gave me life.I feel success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm

Could this be third time lucky?

I truly appreciate any type of feedback.

 

[Claudia123]

The fact that you asking these questions is not a good start. Go take a sunny holiday, chill out, then get a part time job and trade part time. Just a thought. 80k and no direction is very dangerous. Be lucky.

 

[Technically Fundamental]

Doesn't quantum fund offer like 40% a year or something ridiculous?

 

[Rocket!]

Also not sure what niche to enter,do I go for stocks,forex or futures???

Another thing I need to find a good system ? dont know how to start??

This is the part that worries me. Im in no way meaning to sound condescending, but if you havnt a clearcut answer on either of these I dont think youre ready to trade for a living.

How did you survive for 2 years previously? What was your trading plan then?

What was your usually risk% per trade?

What was your average monthly ROI?

Id advise you to trade with a demo of 70000 for six months and try to live frugally for those six months on some of your savings. If you are consistently profitable then you have a chance of supporting yourself from trading. Just remember to treat this demo money like the real thing. THIS IS ESSENTIAL!

Find a high probability trading method your comfortable with and trade it consistently with disipline. Apply proper money management and the rest should take care of itself.

I wish you the very best mate and really hope you have every success in the trading business.

 

[Masquerade]

What are your monthly expenses? How long can you stay out of work? What's your risk profile?

I'd be inclined to take a small amount of that with a slightly higher risk strategy and turn a small sum into a larger sum rather than make 20% of a large sum.

 

[yiehom]

What are your monthly expenses? How long can you stay out of work? What's your risk profile?

I'd be inclined to take a small amount of that with a slightly higher risk strategy and turn a small sum into a larger sum rather than make 20% of a large sum.

Good god!
Having been a trader for ten years and not being able to tell wich security to trade!
For a 3 years old trader trading not even 8 000, this is a great insight to the world of trading.
It reminds me of a "guru" featured every day on the internet, that is unable to plot his fibo's the right way, but is ready to give out loads of trading courses.

 

[Masquerade]

Good god!
Having been a trader for ten years and not being able to tell wich security to trade!
For a 3 years old trader trading not even 8 000, this is a great insight to the world of trading.
It reminds me of a "guru" featured every day on the internet, that is unable to plot his fibo's the right way, but is ready to give out loads of trading courses.

wat?!? Why are you quoting me? :|

 

[shadowninja]

I need to be making on average 2000 pound clean per month.

That's fine. As long as you are ok with making this in 2012, maybe.

If you have a goal of earning 2k by the end of August, I expect your 80k to be about 20k by December. Feel free to prove me wrong.

Otherwise, trade very small amounts for a good few months until you can prove to yourself that you can earn money and know when to stay out of the market when your system doesn't work.

In the meantime, pare all your unnecessary costs so your target is more realistic. Expect to live off your savings for two years. But you HAVE to earn £2k a month? Tough.

 

[goose4]

Thanks for the reply guys...Some really interesting points made.

I was mostly trading on the Dow,monthly contracts.I would look for strong directions in the market and look to reverse,adding on the position too after 250 points.At times it would work well,then you could be stagnated on a position either break even or a heavy loss.My capital was much smaller than this time but we must include inflation.My risk management was more open and free style,I know terrible ideology.I really did some unorthodox things,I remember I was heavily up on a daily position,in the last two hours I was just adding to the position extremely aggressively,let me say it was the best win of my life.I was young and dumb.

This is what I learned,this is what would make a successful trader,but the courage and mental strength to execute needs to retrain your brain in a zen form.This is the problem most people cant get in this zone.You must cut your losses short and let your wins ride the wave....This was my mistake.Cashing my wins early and leaving my losses to long.Its so hard to see a profit of 2000 grand and not cashing it.I calculated your only need to win 4 out of 10 trades to prosper with this ideology.Im still working on the ratios:smart:

You know what mate,many of lifes failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.A contact in London through a friend who is a pro trader gave me a brief email...

Part of the email.


Want to add one or more digits to that figure?

If so, then get yourself a copy of Technical Analysis of Stock Trends, 8th Ed. by John Magee, edited by Charles Bassetti.

Devour the chapters on Trendlines & Support/Resistance.

Then ravish the entire section on Reversal & Continuation Patterns.

For dessert soak up the entire chapters on Dow Theory.

Then come back and have you fall to your feet your feet and gush, "Master, guide us!"

Book on the way

This is the part that worries me. Im in no way meaning to sound condescending, but if you havnt a clearcut answer on either of these I dont think youre ready to trade for a living.

How did you survive for 2 years previously? What was your trading plan then?

What was your usually risk% per trade?

What was your average monthly ROI?

Id advise you to trade with a demo of 70000 for six months and try to live frugally for those six months on some of your savings. If you are consistently profitable then you have a chance of supporting yourself from trading. Just remember to treat this demo money like the real thing. THIS IS ESSENTIAL!

Find a high probability trading method your comfortable with and trade it consistently with disipline. Apply proper money management and the rest should take care of itself.

I wish you the very best mate and really hope you have every success in the trading business.

 

[everyonerich]

i remember theres a full time trader from UK here reside in cambodia, find him and move there to trade for a living. because living cost is much cheaper there.. you can starts slowly from there.

ahh.. i mean this chap here..

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/members/4219-thebramble.html

 

[white_goodman]

end well this will not, best advice is to atleast get a partime job, live off that salary and let your accoutn compound without having to constantly bite into it. I wouldnt dream of going fulltime until i had atleast $500k, so maby 300,000 pounds

 

[ian23]

I think it is about getting a system, then confidence in that system and then the disiplene to follow that system to the point. Start by taking only 2000 pounds and buy only 1 mini contract. Say 1 point = $2 with a stop of 20. So you risk basically around 2% of your capital on a trade. If you follow your system to the point it should only be a matter of time before you have 2000 pounds and so you move up to 2 contracts having faith in your system. Don't change the system when you have a down day. You have to give it atleast a hundred trades to see it work. Basically any system will be able to do so if you can follow it to a tee. I think you must take a little time and do this on a demo first just to prove to yourself it will work in real live before going in with your savings. And if you haven't got the disiplene to sit around with a demo until this happens you will not have the disiplene to do so in real live.
Good luck.

 

[tomorton]

Losing a job is generally never a good thing: apart from the obvious - the loss of earnings and the difficulties in making a prospective new employer believe what actually happened - it shows a loss of control of your own destiny. Not your fault (maybe) but this and even the question itself have a backward-looking negative bias.

The question is - Getting a new job - Is this a good thing?
This is forward-looking, shows that you have surmounted the job-loss mental damage and have determined to move forward. You might say you're not actually getting a new job until someone offers you one, but that is a negative attitude - say to yourself that you are not unemployed or redundant, you are getting a new job, and you will come to believe it. And its not a lie anyway. Prospective employers, more importantly, will see your positive attitude and self-belief.

At this point, even taking a crap job is a good move. You are not ready to self-support through trading, and you won't be until your don't need to be. Take any job going, trade around it: if you're as good as you think you could be, you will soon be able to hand in your notice. If you're not that good, keep taking the money, the job is your safety net and will replenish your damaged account, but search for promotion or a better job.

I honestly hope things go better in the future.

 

[Mr. Charts]

goose4,
You can trade US stocks intra-day direct access with $25k (about £15k).
1. Read the thread under my signature thoroughly and carefully.
2. Test it for yourself paper trading only for two months.
3. See what your results are. If you are profitable paper trading then PROVIDED YOU CAN OVERCOME the psychological factors eg over anxiety, over trading etc., start trading for real with very small size for two months.
4. If you are profitable then gradually scale up size.
5. I would consider placing £16k (about US$26.5k) in a direct access account and seeing what your return is before scaling up further.
6. If you cannot succeed because of psychological reasons - and you must be honest with yourself - stop BEFORE you get down to £15k.
Result:
If you succeed you will have found a great way of making much money than you expected or need.
If you fail you will have gained huge experience and still be left with £79k out of your £80k.

I gave up my full time dental practice in 1999 to trade like this. Ten years on it still works

Richard

 

[apmf]

Well by the end of next month I will loose my job,im 31 one now.I appreciate what the ethos is in making 20% in a year,thats a good figure for a hedge fund.I have saved up 80000 pound and thinking (certain,LOL.I must be insane) of returning being a full time trader.This time doing this properly.I need to be making on average 2000 pound clean per month.Im not sure whether my capital is at the desirable level (that 20% concerns me)

Also not sure what niche to enter,do I go for stocks,forex or futures???

Another thing I need to find a good system ? dont know how to start??

I truly appreciate any type of feedback.

Not having a proven system and not even knowing which market to enter and taking a decision to go full time trading...mate I think its a wrong attitude honestly.

Well you have an advantage of decent a/c size but please do yourself a favor and dont think of yearly % return or any other monetory return just by guessing, leave that stats for your system to decide and to know that, you dont have to loose all your pot (which eventually you will end doing otherwise).

As someone has already mentioned about taking a part-time job and trade side by side with a small capital say 1k, with time and patience you will eventually figure out a system which suits you btw there are plenty out here for free.

Structure your Trading plan and always Keep a journal for daily trading activities if you prefer spreadsheets then even better and decide after the end of each month that how much did you make or what should be done to maximize profitability Risk:Reward ratio etc. My advice would be to focus on the amount of risk taken and try you level best to keep it smaller which obviously is a skill and acquired with time and practise.

Anyway good luck and I am pretty sure you will make it very soon. Lack of enough capital to trade is one of the biggest reasons why newbies fail and fortunately you have got that so try and preserve that atleast in your initial stage.

Cheers!

 

[Mr. Charts]

I should also have said one of the great advantages of day trading US stocks is that their market is open till 9pm UK time so you can do a day job (if you really must ) and trade in the evenings whilst you are learning and gaining precious experience.
Richard

 

[robster970]

I should also have said one of the great advantages of day trading US stocks is that their market is open till 9pm UK time so you can do a day job (if you really must ) and trade in the evenings whilst you are learning and gaining precious experience.
Richard

This is exactly what I do for exactly this reason. I wouldn't suggest trying to trade whilst doing a day job because you'll end up doing both things badly.

 

[EmergentFungus]

I should also have said one of the great advantages of day trading US stocks is that their market is open till 9pm UK time so you can do a day job (if you really must ) and trade in the evenings whilst you are learning and gaining precious experience.
Richard

Or you can lie in bed all morning till 2:30pm.

 

[GCC]

Also not sure what niche to enter,do I go for stocks,forex or futures???

Another thing I need to find a good system ? dont know how to start??

You can't start a business without knowing what the business's about. If you need a consultant to start in a certain field of business, then you are in the wrong business.

You will be ready to trade professionally when you can firmly answer these two questions yourself.

 

[Hollu$]

I'm still a newbie to trading so my advice is probably worth nothing - but why not look at a part-time job 3 days a week or something?
I'm 21 and at University and I work 3 days a week and I get £1400 - which for me is good money! Allows me to save £700 a month to put into an account for trading and use the rest for me. I also get a good bonus each 1/4 - this month I am getting just under £4k - then my salary.

Maybe not best to jump in with 2 feet. Like said before - earn a little while you trade. No harm in extra money.

My uncle used to be a stockbroker in London and at 39 retired - he is now 46 and he is bored out of his mind, he has travelled the world countless times and now he is a dog catcher in London haha! Geeez.