Do you get a significant portion of your income from trading something?
If so, what is life like on days you trade? What do you trade? How did you learn to trade it? Did you do well at first? What keeps you doing this? What is it about your personality, do you think, that makes you enjoy this work?
I can’t imagine being a trader. Or a gambler, for that matter. I’m not really fond of risk. I prefer to make money doing things I have more apparent control over. I traded a bit of stocks during the internet boom, but I really had no idea what I was doing, so I lost a lot of money in the end. Fortunately, my wife had the sense to only let me play with a little bit of our money.
I think it takes a certain something to be willing to put a lot of money on the belief that your analysis is good. I suppose, some people really are just gambling, and they just get lucky. Others get PhDs and then write computer programs to do their trading. And of course, large companies do this. But what makes an individual try their hand, competing with the big boys?
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Does rent for money count?
@Judi That’s not the kind of thing I had in mind, although right now, I can’t think of a way to explain the distinction. Oh, that’s selling a product directly. I mean people who buy and sell just to make a profit on the difference, not because they actually want to own anything.
Like comodities and futures?
No, if I want to gamble, I go to Vegas. The shows are better.
Yea, I trade stocks. I check the market every day, but do not trade every day. I hold until the stock is up 10% then sell. Typical holding time is about 2 weeks (although I do have some dogs that I sell after one year).
It took about 15 years to learn how to ignore most of the pap that is on the airwaves and how to combine some basic fundamentals with short term technicals.
Competing with the big boys is easy. Look at the recent economic downturn. The big boys are stupid and selfish. Unfortunately, they also have an ineffective SEC looking the other way, letting them do pretty much whatever they want.
Beating the big boys is easy because their holdings are so large. The can’t buy or sell large blocks, but must make their moves over long periods. The small guy can get in and get out whenever he wants. The only caveat for the little guy is you have to be trading in the thousands of dollars to reduce the effects of transaction fees.
@PerryDolia What attracts you to this kind of job? How’d you get into it?
@daloon I find the attractions to be short time investment every day, it is mathematical and pattern recognition oriented and I am also, your money does the work so you can do other things. I got into it when I went into business for myself and had some extra time to study. It took a long time to separate the wheat from the chaff in the bullshit that is spewed in the media.
Cash, grass, or ass, nobody rides for free.
First question – No, I don’t currently get a lot of my income from trading. My account size now isn’t big enough to tolerate trades of the size I’d like.
Further – What brought me to trading forex (currencies) was a couple of friends doing it and it seemed interesting. Turns out they aren’t so good at it, lol, but I love to learn, and it caught my interest.
And – As for days to trade, etc. Well, that isn’t the same every week. You might trade 5 days in a row, then make only one trade the following week. Details like that depend on the markets, your allowance for risk, and personal trading style.
You have to be extremely patient, have very disciplined money management, definitely NOT have any sort of gambling mentality, NOT have any sort of get-rich-quick mentality, and be very analytical. Staring at charts can get brutally boring, I’ll admit. Some people I know who are trading probably shouldn’t be, as they lose more than they gain, and put way too much money on single trades. That’s gambling, not trading. Trading is a very controlled process of watching, waiting, following patterns, and working with win/loss ratios that your account can afford.
I trade my knowledge and time for cash.
Not anymore but when married, my husband and I bartered the goods of our business for a lot of things:
Business rent
Salon visits
Artwork
Car repairs
Dental visits
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