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As you can see I am new here (even though I have followed for a long time reading many posts in these forums). I have been investing money in my own brokerage account for about 2 years now. I've mainly been learning the ins and outs of stocks and fundamental analysis (I've read all the main books out there concerning stocks). Recently I have shifted my attention to futures trading and I want to learn all I can about trading.
[you can skip all of this if you wish and jump to my last paragraph, if you don't care about my background information, mentality etc]
I know all the warnings that are going to come. It can ruin your life, you can or will lose all your money, don't do it give me half the money and I'll kick you in the balls and you'll feel better than losing it all trading.
I have always been a self made person with tons of dedication to whatever I do. Long time ago I started my own door-to-door sale business where I was "walking the beat" 12 hours a day to grind out $200 a day. Cold calling all day and getting hung up on then going back for more the next day is cake! Getting a door slammed in your face 150 times a day, walking 15+ miles, or dealing with physical threats and then getting up to do it the next day is much more difficult. Still I did it for 2 years and it paid the rent. I ditched my business since I couldn't grow it any further and went to work for a stock broker (thought i'd learn something) but it didn't learn anything about the markets or how they worked or charts or anything other than how to dial a phone.
I did learn that I was really good at poker (calculating odds, keeping my nerves in check etc) and this was right around the time when online poker was starting to blow up. I got involved and started playing online poker as my full time job. I was making really good money in the tournaments but I found I was mainly playing in the high stakes no limit games. One minute you are up $3,500 and about to take down a huge pot and then that 1 card hits and your buying in for more chips! Learning to manage my emotions during the huge swings was a great life lesson. Anytime I had a non-profitable week (there were a few but overall I made out) I chalked it up as an educational lesson. I fully know an education is not free! you have to pay for it someway (when I learned to play pool, it cost me $ losing to the best players in the pool hall, but eventually it payed off when I became as good or better than them).
During this time a friend got me involved in some MLM be your own boss selling soap and makeup business. I spent time and money learning that I'd never make anything by doing that. This helpe dme to realize the most valuable commodity that I have is my own time! The books I read did help from a motivational standpoint so again I chalked that money up to an investment in myself and an educational expense.
Fast forward to today, where I no longer play poker for a living. I work a regular job making regular money and have enough life experience to know there is no such thing as "easy money." Every dollar I earned I busted my hump for. So believe me when I tell you, I know what I am looking to eventually get into will take time, energy, dedication, and a whole lot of education on my part.
[okay here is the part where you can pickup from if you didn't care about my life story]
What I am looking for help with is education. I want to "go to school" so to speak. No I don't want to pay $4,000 to some person to scam me with their BS rhetoric and let me shadow trade them. I want to invest in myself. What are some of the top books to read when it comes to trading, learning about charts and technical analysis, what do they mean and how to use indicators and setups, learning how to create my own system based upon all the information i'll gather, or any other useful information to have when it comes to futures trading. What videos are worth watching? I am trying to get at the best information available, I don't want to waste my most valuable commodity (time) weeding through the millions of bogus or bad information out there (just like when you went to college and didn't want to waste time with BS courses). I want the meat and the potatoes. I am looking to build an education road map for myself. I don't care if it takes 5 years of reading and studying before i make a live trade.
Thank you for taking the time to read this (especially if you read the back story to get where I came form mentally and how I am prepared for what I am getting into). If you recommend educational material (books, videos etc) please, if you could, let me know why you think it is a must read or watch and how it has helped you.
one start could be to get the Elite membership on futures.io (formerly BMT), this will get you access to a huge pool of information and is a great resource.
Thanks for the reply. I am looking at the elite membership, and I will most likely go that route.
I'd like to be able to move through information in a systematic fashion. Starting out with beginner reading to get the basics of futures and even forex trading.
I don't want to buy someones system or their way of doing it (I never trusted anyone who is selling information that can make them money. It's usually the information they are selling that makes them the money) I want to learn for myself. The only way I know how to do that is by reading, watching and doing. It's just hard to disseminate what I should be reading with the thousands of books and millions of videos, where should one begin and what should one be reading and watching to get a good foothold?
As a new trader myself, I can understand exactly where you are coming from. I have got into trading as I have had to very reluctantly leave the world of full time employment because of health problems. I have always had a ‘passing’ interest in trading and often thought that it would be something I would look further into if I ever had time.
I was keen to keep myself going mentally and for me trading is perfect for that. I was amazed when I started to look into trading properly, how much misinformation there is out there. I have settled on trading the futures markets and I use a very simple chart by watching price action and the jigsaw tools. I would strongly recommend an elite membership to this site, I can honestly say that it contains all you need to get started on the right path.
You don’t need to spend a fortune on education. A subscription to futures.io (formerly BMT) elite, the Jigsaw tools (which include a wealth of educational resources and to learn about price action through the various elite threads.
For charting, I use Ninja which is free until you are ready to start trading for real. The market replay tool is fantastic and I have spent many hours practice trading the first hour or two of the ES futures. I find the big advantage of this is when prices get a bit stuck in congestion, you can fast forward a bit so that you are not sat around waiting as you would in a live scenario. I keep a detailed journal and screenshots of all the practice trades and review the journal and add further notes. I keep a spreadsheet of performance and pick random days that I have already traded and have another go to see if I can get a better result. I find that when you are looking at dozens and dozens of charts that you don’t remember patterns from particular days (I don’t anyway).
I spend a lot longer reviewing my trades and journals than actually trading. I strongly believe that this is what helps you improve significantly.
When trading live, my target is simple, just 2 points a day. Once I have got that I am done and go back to sim. This is achievable, despite what many others may say! Wait for the right setups, for the price action that you have been practicing and the points are there for you. Never, ever break your trading rules that you have refined and practiced, the market does not forgive you and you will get burned.
You are about to embark on an exciting journey, take it one step at a time. Set yourself realistic goals.
I have been waiting for an opportunity to make my first post on these forums as I too have been following them for some time now and I hope that I can now make a positive contribution.
I'm creating this thread with the purpose of a 'catch all' for any trading related question that futures.io (formerly BMT) members want to ask, but don't want to create a new thread for -- or find an existing thread to reply to.
I've …
Is probably the single best thread for new or unprofitable traders on all of nexusfi.com (formerly BMT). But maybe that's just because of the amount of time I put into it.
The thread basically shows all the common mistakes traders make on every topic you can imagine related to trading. This is extremely useful info if you are interested in avoiding those mistakes and thinking differently from the majority of people who are not successful traders.
I would also highly suggest you watch a couple of webinars each week, or more. There are something near 200 webinars on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) as of this post, and now that I have relocated to Ecuador and put the 'big move' behind me I will be resuming a busy schedule of adding new webinars for Elite Members.
This is gold. You don't learn by trading, you learn by reviewing your trades.
Big Mike's link is a great place to start. The hard part is finding what works for you and that means you will find out a ton of stuff that does not work for you. But that's the process.
I strongly encourage you to get an elite membership(cheapest education materials you will find anywhere) because there are detailed journals of successful folks day by day activity. And you can join in the conversation. That's how you learn.
But I repeat: The hard part is finding what works for you, and that means you will find out a ton of stuff that does not work for you. But that's the process.
Price action and risk management. I would focus your initial efforts in those directions. Also watch "Where to start as a trader" in the webinars section. You might not initially have the bankroll to trade in full size commodity contracts to start out because it may entail too much risk to your account. You might instead try a micro contract or even forex. There is an instrument for every size account. The webinar does a lot better job explaining it than I ever could.
I was recently in the position you are now in. I'm a blue collar dude with a little college under my belt. I have a good job and thought trading would be a good way to make extra money with the time I wasn't spending at work. I wanted to jump in and get started trading futures! I found this site and instead began reading a little bit. Thank goodness I did because I think if I jumped in headlong at the beginning I would have gotten my head severed and stuck on a pike Game of Thrones style.
Now, two years later I can look back and say I haven't blown up my account and this year I even got to pay a little extra in taxes. I chalk it up to this site and the people on it. Go slow, read, and follow the advice you've already been given in this thread. I hope this helps.
Thank you all for the information. I am going to do the elite membership so I can view the webinars and trainh materials.
Is there any books out there that are a recommended read?
I am concerned about getting too advanced information too early on without getting the basic information first. Understanding how to view charts or setup charts for viewing, technical analysis, etc. I'm sure there are webinar info here, I'm just curious if there may be printed material as well that is "must read" or should read.
Here's a link to a listing of free articles and videos and some nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) webinars.
You can scroll down to "Some Trading Methods shared on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) (links)" to see some links to some of the strategies generously shared on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) (some elite).
Where to start as a trader:
Where to start as a trader? (Part I: Instruments and Brokers) - YouTube (
Often quoted here on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT): "How much can I lose?"
Elitetrader thread of biggest one day losses:
What is the worst one …
Al Brooks of Brooks Price Action also has some free .pdfs about his price action setups here. I think just
good for getting a new idea of price action rather than actual setups unless one makes their own strategy around it.
"intro_BPA.zip" - two powerpoint slideshows. One is for an older futures.io (formerly BMT) Brooks webinar.
"BrooksQuotesExcerpts.doc" - summary notes of the original book and other material …
I heard some say Brooks' videos are a good alternative and gets to the point better than his long , wordy, repetitious, and hard to read books. But then again, it's still a vendor product as the videos sold on his website cost a few hundred $.
Interesting to hear about your temporary success as a poker player before the gov't shut it down. I think there were a few other members who joined nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) who had similar stories in the last few years. I'm personally worried the gov't will shut down retail trading as well i.e. make it too hard or costly, or just limit retail trading outright i.e. "now retail traders need to pay more of their 'fair share'!" as a scapegoat for big financials screwing up the economy for their own multi-billion bets using Fed free money; as they consider any trading below swing level timeframe "speculators" trading. And of course still propping up the big banks and firms picking the "winners", but that's the usual conspiracy fears you'll see posted or chatted about here from time to time.