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Oh hey, np, I don't mind being an example of how tough it can be with lots of backtracking on progress, even to humorous levels per the "38 steps", haha. And I'm always glad to help warn newcomers about the charlatan vendor risks. Just some correction on my performance, as I said, I had a profitable year prior to last with plenty of consistency and I am comfortable that my "edges" do work otherwise I wouldn't have traded live already, and where I screwed up last year on a slew of critical trades that gave back my profits for the year to end up net negative. I also took breaks up to years of no trading at all, so it's been more like 5 to 6 years of trying which is still far longer than I'd imagined (didn't we all) it would be from the start . Thanks for wishing me luck. Good trading to you too.
I'd agree there's lots of good intro videos of various trading styles by vendors in the Elite section that can serve as excellent and free beginning trading info, without having to pay for a pricey trading "academy" -upsell buffet course.
Those $10k accounts are not just $10k too, especially if you are in your 20s. That should be your oldest capital that has the longest time to compound. The opportunity cost that you lose on $10k compounding for 40 years at 7% is a $150k.
The goal has to be wealth maximization. Not trading for its own sake or for winning a game to prove a point.
If you start trading with no system, no edge, no experience, and no capital you are practically doing wealth minimization.
I would buy Poor Charlie's Almanac and read it a few times. The younger Munger can take over your brain the better. Then figure out multiple strategies for wealth maximization that trading is just one of those strategies. Don't let trading dreams blind you to other opportunities and talents you have. The markets are not going anywhere.
"He who can does; he who cannot, teaches." - sure, as always, there're some exceptions, but it's true. Common sense tells you that in an arguably the most competitive industry people who sell books, courses, indicators, etc are not real traders.
The market will expose who you really are, not to others, but to yourself. And you might not like what you see. When you start trading, it's just you and the market. The market is the best clinical psychologist in existence. Fear, greed, all your little insecurities, it's all going to come out in full force and will affect your decision-making process and ability to pull the trigger at the right time. You can have the best trading equipment/educational knowledge in the world, but it is not going to make any difference if your mental game is not dialed in.
It goes without saying that screen time, a lot of practise and foundational knowledge are necessary to get started. Not to be successful, just to get started, but as with any professional field, the best players are the best, because they have mastered the mental game.
Take sports for example. On average, anybody who gets into NFL, NBA, etc are already playing on a high level, but they all are. There is no edge in that. In other words, there is no edge in speaking English in an English-speaking country. There is no edge in knowing everything there is to know about trading. All market players have the same knowledge, everybody is looking at the same charts and using the same indicators.
So why, on average, some teams/players, win more than others? Why some players stand out? While it isn't a secret, they don't usually talk about it during interviews or write a lot of books about it, but if you dig a little deeper, you'll see that their edge is the mental game. Bill Belichick mentions "mental toughness" for a reason. Some teams/players are clutch, while others crumble after things don't go their way.
Can you throw a pick 6 and act as if nothing happened on the next play? Can you throw several interceptions in one game and still believe in your process/skills, etc? Or are you going to start panicking and second-guessing yourself, your process and skills? Can you take a loss on a trade? Can you take several losses and reverse the position when necessary or are you going to panic, ignore your trading plan and hang on or add to a losing trade hoping that it will come back?
There is no edge in knowing how to trade. An edge is in execution and in your own head.
How would you know that this person knows how to trade? Unless you can get him to screen share with you in real time years of his actual financial statements, you wouldn't know.
Commodities? Would you start learning how to snowboard with a quad cork?
When the so-called "market wizards" were "wizards" nobody wrote books about them. Bill Belichick does not write books about how to be a coach or how to play a game. when he does write a book, you can bet that nobody is going to become the next Bill Belichick by reading his book.
Your first step should be not thinking about trading commodities. Trade ES, RTY, or NQ. If you cannot be consistently profitable trading ES, you will not be profitable trading commodities.
I would not recommend any of those books.
Thinkorswim (TOS): The easiest way to get started. After you really master TOS and find it limiting, NinjaTrader 8.
Would you ask Tom Brady to explain to you his methodologies and to give you a step-by-step guide to throwing a ball? No, right? Why? Because in order to even ask a question, at the very least, you need to be on the same field with him. But assuming you're Drew Brees and actually can ask him a question, would you do that?
Does it really matter what I do and what my methodologies are? You are not trading me, you're trading the market. Which means you need to learn how the market works, why the price of ES goes up or down at any given time.
So where should you start in my opinion? If you're starting from scratch and basically don't know anything about the market and how it works, believe it or not, I would start simply by watching CNBC all day for at least one week. I am talking about literally watching CNBC for 5 trading days starting 30 minutes before the market opens and stopping watching CNBC 30/45 minutes after the market close.
Why would you want to do that? You are not going to learn anything about trading by doing this. But you will learn about different components of the market and how they influence and interact with each other. The goal is to have a conceptual understanding of what moves the market up or down. If you don't want to do that, I can give you a little shortcut.
1) Learn about the Federal Reserve's policies and why they are so influential. Read FOMC minutes and make sure that you understand what every word means.
2) Learn how the bonds work, specifically ZN.
3) There is an inverse correlation between ZN and ES, RTY. Study it and make sure that you really understand how this inverse correlation works.
4) Learn the Volume Market Profile.
5) Learn about market breadth. If you want to trade RTY, for example, watch intraday $TIKRL, $ADRLD and $VOLRLD on 3 minutes.
6) Setup your Thinkorswim to display full data intraday (including Globex, an overnight session) on 15 or 30 minutes. Put the market profile on it. Have two screens, one with daily/intraday profile and another one that shows a Weekly profile. Add SMA 50 (simple moving average) on an intraday chart of ES or RTY on 15 or 30 minutes and watch what the price does around SMA 50. Add VWAP. Understand what the VWAP shows and how it works.
7) Setup another screen that plots ZN with the same settings as above for ES or RTY.
Obviously, this is just the basics to get started, but I hope you'll find it useful.
This post and another one I just read from seatle7 have invaluable no bullshit advice. Read them over and over. I can relate to them in so many ways. Great posts guys.
Most people, I was one’ really don’t understand how difficult and how long it takes. I have friends asking me ‘can I teach them to trade’ like it’s a game of dominoes or something. If anyone plays golf I can use an anology. A pro golfer would spend many years practising their craft, even the top pros have full time coaches. I could ask a pro golfer to teach me how to play golf but I would have to spend at least the same amount of time he did , with him by my side, to even have a chance of getting anywhere near his level. I would also need the same mindset and the drive and will to succeed.
Thank you for the tips, but I dont know where to get 100k.
Let alone that sounds very scary, to start trading with that much money without nowing that I'm profitable.