References for a 17 year old looking to get into Day Trading?

[HelloIDistance]

Originally Posted by Tony Romo

Tell me how this is idiotic, and I'll tell you why you're idiotic.

Well how about you tell me how it is impossible to make money unless you have $100,000? Sure if you plan on making millions you'll need some money. But even with 5,000 you can turn that into good money quick if you know what you are doing. Apparently you and I have difference sense of what good money is. However to claim you need $100,000 initial investment is indeed idiotic.

 

[HelloIDistance]

Originally Posted by Tony Romo

You realize he's trying to make money...? How much could he realistically make with just a little bit of money let alone even $10k...

LOL you realize there are different investing strategies right? Disregarding the fact that the OP will lose all his money regardless because he/she doesn't know what they are doing, you can easily make money with 10K. Last year I made over 70% ROI trading big board stocks. Assuming we are using 10k as the initial investment this is $7,000 for trading stocks. There are lots of ways to trade. Options traders can make tons of money. So that fact you claim you need $100,000 to make real money blows my mind. What is your definition of real money? Everyone has to start somewhere.

 

[Superfluous]

Originally Posted by HelloIDistance

LOL you realize there are different investing strategies right? Disregarding the fact that the OP will lose all his money regardless because he/she doesn't know what they are doing, you can easily make money with 10K. Last year I made over 70% ROI trading big board stocks. Assuming we are using 10k as the initial investment this is $7,000 for trading stocks. There are lots of ways to trade. Options traders can make tons of money. So that fact you claim you need $100,000 to make real money blows my mind. What is your definition of real money? Everyone has to start somewhere.
70%? How many people make 70%? How many people make even 15% consistently....? Even then, so what, you would have made $7k. Can you live off that? No. You're much more likely to lose money than make 1/7th of that. 15% in a year would be outstanding... 15% of 10,000 is $1500... Not worth the risk and time involved.... In fact, if you're making 70%, the risk you took is not worth making the $7k. $7k for a high likelihood of losing all $10k? That's exactly what he would need... And "everyone has to start somewhere" .... yeah, learning how to invest. But he wants to make money, and it's not worth trying to "make money" with anything less than $100k because you have to take on way too much risk to make anything worthwhile.

 

[HelloIDistance]

Originally Posted by Tony Romo

70%? How many people make 70%? How many people make even 15% consistently....? Even then, so what, you would have made $7k. Can you live off that? No. You're much more likely to lose money than make 1/7th of that.

15% in a year would be outstanding... 15% of 10,000 is $1500... Not worth the risk and time involved....

in fact, if you're making 70%, the risk you took is not worth making the $7k. $7k for a high likelihood of losing all $10k?

And "everyone has to start somewhere" .... yeah, learning how to invest. But he wants to make money, and it's not worth trying to "make money" with anything less than $100k because you have to take on way too much risk to make anything worthwhile.

"Not worth the risk or time involved" this is a vague statement to base your argument on. You don't have to spend loads of time on this. I trade by technical analysis. If you are sitting there digging up fundamentals on 100s of companies then yeah I'd agree. Also 70% is not normal, you are right. I'd bet 90% who invest in the market (short term investors trying to make millions in penny stocks) lose it all. However, I do think it is important to invest and if you actually put the time in to learn it will help you over the years. If you stick your money in pink sheet and OTC BB stocks or trade like an idiot then of course you will lose it all.

I don't think we'll never agree on the fact that you can make money without 100K. This discussion basically depends on two factors; A. How you value your time. B. What your perception of "real money" is. I don't find trading to be insanely time consuming and any money I make in the market is extra cash in the bank for me. I assume you find trading to be time consuming and want to make thousands on each trade.

 

[HgaleK]

Originally Posted by Tony Romo

70%? How many people make 70%? How many people make even 15% consistently....? Even then, so what, you would have made $7k. Can you live off that? No. You're much more likely to lose money than make 1/7th of that. 15% in a year would be outstanding... 15% of 10,000 is $1500... Not worth the risk and time involved.... Says you. Others might disagree. Covered writes will easily return 15% annually In fact, if you're making 70%, the risk you took is not worth making the $7k. $7k for a high likelihood of losing all $10k? That's exactly what he would need... Options provide leverage and limited risk. Much less risk than dumping your cash in to a bullshit mutual fund. And "everyone has to start somewhere" .... yeah, learning how to invest. But he wants to make money, and it's not worth trying to "make money" with anything less than $100k because you have to take on way too much risk to make anything worthwhile. The traditional approach in to investing is much closer to gambling than active trading. Toss in some money and hope that if the market doesn't crash that your returns will outrun inflation.

 

[HgaleK]

Originally Posted by HelloIDistance

I trade by technical analysis. If you are sitting there digging up fundamentals on 100s of companies then yeah I'd agree.

There are services that have all of the fundamentals taken care of, ranked, etc. You simply have to filter.

 

[linds_15]

Originally Posted by Tony Romo

You realize he's trying to make money...? How much could he realistically make with just a little bit of money let alone even $10k...

yes i realize hes trying to make money but the first page and a half concluded that it wont happen. so in lieu of this i tried to provide with the OP a way that he can start and learn, while being serious with his investment, and go from there

 

[patrickBOOTH]

I approve of OP's avatar.

 

[phreak]

FYI the 100k is a commonly accepted minimum amount to trade with while living entirely off of profits which the OP won't be doing.

I would totally +1 the poker idea if this were 2006 or if the OP is not in the US

 

[javyn]

I admit, I'm not above day trading every once in a while under certain circumstances....like when there is some ungodly overhyped tech IPO, I'll buy at 8:30 and sell at 3:55, but, mostly, no. Anyway this is a good book to start with, explains the technical analysis tools well, and is very good of letting you know what you are in for. Hopefully this book can talk you out of daytrading lol

 

[popbot]

Please, god, do not start day trading. Warning, angry rant ahead.

start

Every book, seminar, guru, or whatever that says they have the secret are doing nothing but BSing you and preying on the public's misconceptions about how financial markets work and how financial assets are priced. After all, if they have the secret, why are they wasting time writing books/essays/seminar speeches instead of retiring on their mega yacht from all that alpha they are earning? The answer, obviously, is that it is much more profitable to tell people they can day trade and then try and sell them a book than it is to day trade yourself. Sure they may have made some money early on, but the smart ones realized they got lucky, and selling books to gullible and credulous people is way easier than panicking in front of a computer screen seven days a week.

People get suckered in because a "friend of a friend" made $100,000 in two weeks, what they don't hear about are the vast majority who don't make any money, or the others who lose everything. We as human beings are biased to take outlier events and assume they are the norm, especially if the reinforce what we already believe or want to believe.

Say what you want about business school (and there are plenty of bad things to say about it), one thing that any reputable finance program will teach you is not even to bother trying to "game the system". One of my financial theory professors said something like this, and it stayed with me:

"There are thousands of people smarter than you, working harder than you, with more tools than you have, analyzing every bit of data on every stock in every market. You are not special. You do not know anything."

You know what is a quick way to get laughed at to your face? Tell someone in the industry you are day trading on technical analysis you do by yourself. Unless you are a math genius with a PhD from MIT, you will not be taken seriously, and even then you better have results. Algorithm-peddling grad students are a dime a dozen. Any information you "discover" is 100% guaranteed already to be priced into the stock/option/bond/commodity/WHATEVER. Don't even get me started on options "gurus". If you think you have found the perfect, alpha-creating option strategy, than I have a bridge to sell you.

There are no such things as trading strategies. There are just the lucky, who crow and brag about how easy it is and how they have a great strategy that is guaranteed to work, and there are the broke, who are the same people just over a longer time horizon.

It a crapshoot, pure and simple. The only difference is craps players actually understand the game they are playing.

end

Just start a painting business, like a few other people said.

 

[whacked]

Originally Posted by sebastian089

I'm curious why no one mentioned FX yet...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...187273238.html

Does that sound like a normal lifestyle to you?

Originally Posted by HgaleK

Covered writes will easily return 15% annually

I'd suggest you drop out of school and just write options all day. With "easy" 15% annual return and the power of compounding, you will see eye to eye with Uncle Buffett in no time!

 

[Superfluous]

Wow, a lot of you don't understand risk/return and intelligent investing. There's no "free lunch" in investing. There's no "easy money." To make x amount, you have to take on x risk as well. To think that you'll always make money is laughable... you sound like Bernie Madoff. You "day-traders," which I think is a dumb term to begin with, will lose all your money

. But of course, it's just "bad luck" when you lose all your money, right?

Bottom-line, there's a reason why PWM firms don't try to double their clients' money... A. They would lose half their money just as quickly, B. They have enough money where 5-10% already makes a lot of money without investing like an idiot. To those of you crying for options strategies... you better hope the market doesn't move sideways for awhile.... oh wait, I'm sure you'll have exited all of your long positions and have a short straddle launched when it does, right?

. Just because you understand options doesn't mean you make easy money.

 

[worldrunner]

Enjoy everybody... http://fisher.osu.edu/fin/cern/cerninv.htm

 

[HgaleK]

Originally Posted by whacked

I'd suggest you drop out of school and just write options all day. With "easy" 15% annual return and the power of compounding, you will see eye to eye with Uncle Buffett in no time!

Ah, yes, because a covered write is the same thing as purchasing a controlling share of a company with strong fundamentals and ensuring that it's managed to success?

Additionally, dropping out of college isn't a sound move from an investment standpoint unless I have another strong job option lined up (actually have several, but not the point here). Why would somebody who trades for a living not want to hedge their bet with a fallback like the job that their degree would get them?

Wow, a lot of you don't understand risk/return and intelligent investing. There's no "free lunch" in investing. There's no "easy money." To make x amount, you have to take on x risk as well. To think that you'll always make money is laughable... you sound like Bernie Madoff.

No one said that you'll always make money, and any idiot understands risk/return. There tons of spreads that offer lower risk, higher return, and the ability to quickly modify a trade if market conditions change.

People get suckered in because a "friend of a friend" made $100,000 in two weeks, what they don't hear about are the vast majority who don't make any money, or the others who lose everything. We as human beings are biased to take outlier events and assume they are the norm, especially if the reinforce what we already believe or want to believe.

Just start a painting business, like a few other people said.

The irony is strong in this one. What do you know about owning and running a business? What do you know about starting a business? A friend of a friend loaded off of some genius startup of his?

"There are thousands of people smarter than you, working harder than you, with more tools than you have, analyzing every bit of data on every stock in every market. You are not special. You do not know anything."

Which is why one shouldn't try and trade like a financial institution. It doesn't work.