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Thanks for the replies guys.. really helpful to have a community of people that aren't asking for 3k to just help me out. I think I'll just try playing around with NT for now (See if I can get the sim going to at least understand the platform) and at the very least get the elite membership here..
I would try out Sierra Charts before committing to NinjaTrader... I've been a NT user for a decade and recently tried Sierra because I want Market Profile data at a good price... Sierra runs circles around NT in capabilities and performance. Lots of support from various firms, in particular Infinity Futures.
My best advice would be to ask yourself if you are willing to commit a LOT of time (years) to this without making money, and likely losing money, from it. This is a world class competition for money and you should fully appreciate that. If you still think it's something you want to pursue, then I would get an elite membership here and start reading and watching webinars, I'm partial to FuturesTrader71 stuff, he also does a traderbite live on youtube every morning where he lays out his views. Also:
- Start watching the markets, get a feel for how things move.
- Start a journal, get in the habit of recording what you learn every day.
- Don't watch financial "news" (entertainment), it's just mental pollution, and you will need your own insights to trade.
- Definitely stay away from indicators.
- There are no shortcuts, don't get swindled.
Yes, you will need a charting platform and a data feed, when I started I just opened a TDA account and got think or swim with data for free, and still use it for some stuff. I wouldn't get overly invested in any one package yet though, there may be reasons to go one way or another depending on where your path leads you.
Trading: The one I'm creating in the present....Index Futures mini/micro, ZF
Posts: 2,311 since Nov 2011
Thanks Given: 7,341
Thanks Received: 4,518
At a certain level the platform one chooses ceases to matter IMHO as they are all very good and I feel it gets into splitting hairs given you are using a standalone platform again IMHO not something for some broker save Thinkorswim or Interactive Brokers. So the likes of Trade Station, Ninjatrader, Sierra, OEC and many other standalones. So I say if you find something that floats your boat go with it. Just commit.
Next you need data. But above all you need cash. Money you don't need for life. This money is going to be the life blood of your business. Think about this life blood. If you had a low level of blood in your body how healthy would you be? How alive? How vibrant of a person would/could you be? You would be sickly. Low energy....pale. Your immune system could not function well and you would be ill. Many traders have tiny accounts, low levels of life blood. So it dominates over everything they do. They try to scalp markets risking 1 2 or 3 ticks because they can't afford to lose their blood or they will die. Because they have such a small amount of blood to start with. They have to be right almost 100% of the time (well, they feel they do because they don't understand this is a probability game one needs to retrain themselves to think like this to make this business work everywhere in life before trading you do better when you are correct about "things" ie school you get A's work you get promoted but if you keep trying to be right in the market you go broke, you will lose much much more than just the money you opened the account with due to margin calls) because when wrong a bit they are done, bloods all gone just like in the human body if you bleed out thats it man.
So a lot of what you do depends on how much capital you have to start with if its a small amount (nothing wrong about that just be real about it don't lie to yourself) futures is not a good idea save for something like this and only this FX Products or micro spot FX with a honest broker (extremely hard to find as many will trade against you taking the other side of your trades as they know the success rate is very low so to them its a great trade etc) The idea being with these two: E-micro forex Futures a CME product and spot forex (FX = Forex = foreign exchange = currency pairs ie USD/EUR) is they have very low per tick (smallest price increment, in FX this is called a pip I say tick because I trade Index Futures and Interest Rate Futures CME products and stock pairs) dollar value. So you can risk a small amount to see if your idea for a trade works or it does not work. And not lose to much of this precious life blood. Stock might be an option to trade because you control the tick size, so to speak, yourself with the number of shares you trade. Problem here is the $25k minimum pattern day trading rule. I am making the assumption here, and please for give me, that perhaps you don't have a large amount of cash for trading based entirely off of past interactions here at nexusfi.com with new people to this business and from reading your posts.
Anyway dive in and learn. I leave you with a quote from a book I won here from a @Big Mike quiz at the end of one of many many amazing webinars, the best trading learning set of webinars on the planet as far as I'm concerned so be sure and become Elite. From "Trade Like A Casino" by Richard L Weissman.
Ron
...My calamity is My providence, outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy...
The steed of this Valley is pain; and if there be no pain this journey will never end.
Buy Low And Sell High (read left to right or right to left....lol)