How did you actually learn trading?

How did you guys actually learn trading?

Ex. Did you guys read a specific few books/ watch videos on technical analysis and then try and see if you could identify patterns paper trading?

I am just perplexed as to how I really start with self education and practice, as when I look at something I feel as if I am jumping all over the place and accomplishing nothing.

I plan on day trading stocks eventually (I have the $25k required+ some extra and enough for living expenses for a bit.) Basically I am screwed at this point and need to essentially go back to school for any sort of career I may enjoy, so I figured delaying to attempt something I believe I will enjoy and potentially losing a sum of money that isn't enough to do anything meaningful with won't really be too much of an issue. Not expecting to make a large sum, just develop consistency, maybe then join a prop firm, etc.

My own route to trading isn't unique but I would definitely advise against day-trading unless and until you're a really good swing trader, but learn the techniques of this on multi-day trades.

My first steps were in reading about how the stock market works, a few paperbacks on TA, plus a 3-day course on TA. I studied charts every available minute.

The big step forward was joining a group of traders in my region, plus this and one or two other forums. I also read Mark Douglas. I started taking my own trading more seriously. In this phase I learned how traders actually do trade, rather than the theory of how they might trade - this generally isn't going to come from books or courses.

Comparison and practice are essential, and getting the best of these has to involve putting real money at risk. Real money changes the game so I wouldn't put much faith in paper trading.

As far as career is concerned, I would only recommend 1) get the highest level qualification you can, then 2) go for the highest-paying job you can find. A decent income will capitalise your trading and keep off mental pressure from money issues so you can actually be a trader.

And good luck to you.

tomorton said:

My own route to trading isn't unique but I would definitely advise against day-trading unless and until you're a really good swing trader, but learn the techniques of this on multi-day trades.

My first steps were in reading about how the stock market works, a few paperbacks on TA, plus a 3-day course on TA. I studied charts every available minute.

The big step forward was joining a group of traders in my region, plus this and one or two other forums. I also read Mark Douglas. I started taking my own trading more seriously. In this phase I learned how traders actually do trade, rather than the theory of how they might trade - this generally isn't going to come from books or courses.

Comparison and practice are essential, and getting the best of these has to involve putting real money at risk. Real money changes the game so I wouldn't put much faith in paper trading.

As far as career is concerned, I would only recommend 1) get the highest level qualification you can, then 2) go for the highest-paying job you can find. A decent income will capitalise your trading and keep off mental pressure from money issues so you can actually be a trader.

And good luck to you.

Click to expand...

Thank you; but how long did it take for you to actually start trading? Ex. You read books for a week, a month, an hour lol, started trading and discussing trades for a month, etc.

The highest paying jobs, or only jobs I can attain are the 9million different sales jobs. Without writing a 10 page rant, I obviously want nothing to deal with these anymore. Since I would have to attain different degrees for anything else, delaying this to explore an option isn't going to matter in the long run if I fail miserably. I am also going to work a part time gig to alleviate some financial pressure.

Rouge said:

Thank you; but how long did it take for you to actually start trading? Ex. You read books for a week, a month, an hour lol, started trading and discussing trades for a month, etc.

The highest paying jobs, or only jobs I can attain are the 9million different sales jobs. Without writing a 10 page rant, I obviously want nothing to deal with these anymore. Since I would have to attain different degrees for anything else, delaying this to explore an option isn't going to matter in the long run if I fail miserably. I am also going to work a part time gig to alleviate some financial pressure.

Click to expand...

I probably did some research via books, financial newspapers, magazines etc. for only about a month part-time before I started buying shares. I traded shares on about a 5-10 day time horizon for about a year. The tech boom than kicked off and I found I could trade shares within about a 1-5 day time horizon. So quickly the tech boom was over and I had a crack at day-trading but was absolutely the world's worst day-trader so went off into spread-betting swing trades (long and short) large cap stocks, then stock indices.

As I see it, study only gets you the theory of how to open and close trades, you only learn how to trade when you start to trade. Just reading about driving and actually driving.

"Sales" as in sales repping or as in retail assistant? Done some sales repping of training courses and programmes - a challenge to take the knock-backs but really good fun to do. Sales skills help in almost any other job - in the end, everything is selling.

tomorton said:

I probably did some research via books, financial newspapers, magazines etc. for only about a month part-time before I started buying shares. I traded shares on about a 5-10 day time horizon for about a year. The tech boom than kicked off and I found I could trade shares within about a 1-5 day time horizon. So quickly the tech boom was over and I had a crack at day-trading but was absolutely the world's worst day-trader so went off into spread-betting swing trades (long and short) large cap stocks, then stock indices.

As I see it, study only gets you the theory of how to open and close trades, you only learn how to trade when you start to trade. Just reading about driving and actually driving.

"Sales" as in sales repping or as in retail assistant? Done some sales repping of training courses and programmes - a challenge to take the knock-backs but really good fun to do. Sales skills help in almost any other job - in the end, everything is selling.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the estimate, as that seems reasonable. Not against swing trading, as i'm going to try several things out.

Sales as in insurance, mortgages, the usual suspects lol. I'm not stating there is no money in it, as the money I plan to use form this isn't from a lottery ticket. I am saying I hate everything about it, again I don't want to write a 10 page rant......that is what getting obnoxiously drunk at the bar is for

I've never read a trading book in my life, I did however go on a trading course with an American trader named Chris Manning about 20 years ago and did learn a lot about TA.

I think everything I know about the markets is from trial and error, I always start small when trialing a new method and then increase the trades as my confidence grows.

Trading is one of those things that you just need to learn by yourself and with real money also!

hewhodareswins said:

I've never read a trading book in my life, I did however go on a trading course with an American trader named Chris Manning about 20 years ago and did learn a lot about TA.

I think everything I know about the markets is from trial and error, I always start small when trialing a new method and then increase the trades as my confidence grows.

Trading is one of those things that you just need to learn by yourself and with real money also!

Click to expand...

That makes a lot of sense, just figured it is good to know the basic theories.

By watching/studying charts especially the longer term ones(4H etc) understand what an impulse move and a retracement is, understand the break and retest of a support resistance zone, understand what a false/true breakout is, use trend lines to draw channels and understand the diff between a trending and range bound market, then study these occurances as they are common across all markets. technical analysis is the study of patterns and price actions/reactions unless you are trading fundamental long term or scalping using DOM or L2 thats basically all it is

Rouge said:

That makes a lot of sense, just figured it is good to know the basic theories.

Click to expand...

You should understand the concepts first and not to be confused by spate of indicators offered by different gurus which somehow generate "correct signals" without even understanding why they may work. That's the main problem with current trading tools used by majority of retail amateur traders.
Start from basic and progress to more advanced things without losing connect of how things "get more sophisticated". Its very important if you don't want to lost in vast of incorrect trading methods.

Thanks for the replies. Basically studying charts, theories, and practice. I believe I am going to attempt to read about a chart patterns and then apply it at the same time, to develop a better understanding.
Didn't take off work this week as planned (I have over 2 weeks of pto, since you cant really take off if you want to earn commissions) due to having to endlessly monitor everything there lol, but i'm definitely planning to start something this weekend (obliviously not live trading.)

It seems to me that the main discipline and try to gain experience quickly, while a small deposit, and the error will cost a few dollars

Lots of good newbie stuff in the archives on this forum. They all ask the same questions, so you will learn if you can be bothered.

Roobin said:

It seems to me that the main discipline and try to gain experience quickly, while a small deposit, and the error will cost a few dollars

Click to expand...

Yes, in large part trading well is about ability rather than pure knowledge. So a plan, practice and actual trading are more valuable than a training course. Remember to review the trades you close but also the trades you didn't even take.

I guess like most, I started live and lost a lot of money before realizing, you don't actually have to live trade to learn, so I stopped and went and back tested any trading strategy I could find, until I developed few of my own and since then I am doing pretty well...

I would recommend going on a course to learn about TA.
For fundamental analysis it will be reading reports, forecasts and general economic/political/sector news.

It will then be about how you interpret this data into placing a correct trade.

I have never read a book about trading.

I found information wherever I could - books, youtube videos, talked with traders who understand atleast something about it. In any case, it's a long process, and at first you'll encounter a lot of excess information.

Well, I never did attempt this, because honestly I don't have the balls just yet, ended up doing more mortgage nonsense : frown: Not going to lie I have been hoping interest rates would increase which would kill my currently places business (refi not purchased based) so i'd have an excuse, but the opposite keeps happening, and I keep scraping by a living doing **** I hate but am good at lol.
Anyways I read a cramer book and watch him for insight (of course I read financial and news articles all day as well.) I decided to start experimenting with call options. I did just lose my first arrogant put on nvda (I actually was a hair in the money at one point, so the writer really knew his ****, i'm very impressed), but I feel very confident in my amd puts that are way out. What I have learned so far is invest in what you know, something I learned from buffet quote (example in 2014 when I bought my first stocks killed it in ntdoy, amd, and baba-although not at first, and got destroyed buying oil down because I was like I never had gas that was less than $3 a gallon in my life this can't be real lol.)
I'd still love to learn how to due real technical analysis, but so far all I have learned the markets seem to revolve around blind fear and blind hype, which is honestly the way I was forced to cut my teeth on btc (when you mine btc, and later one the alt coins it was all about being in on the pump side.)

Since someone may be curious, why I dislike amd and nvda , amd financials everyone knows, but it is due to the massive talk everyone in the world says about mining btc and altcoins (mining is the only reason I have any money today to be honest, so I know this stuff much better than any stock), and these people don't know the first thing about any of it. I also popped out of most of everything, but no need to listen to amateur hour

I'd still like to learn how to actually look at trends as I do not have enough money to really make a significant impact swing trading and calls seem to be really aggressively priced (plus i'd never do anything like selling a put or what not, way too much risk for me.)

Interesting reading Rouge, cheers for coming back.

I can recommend long-term trend-following as an easy approach to trading as long as you have a disciplined approach to the losers (but these are easier to see against a trend), I recommend it to all beginners at trading.

There are as many ways to recognise, confirm and compare trends as there are traders but my advice would be to work out what you want to see on the chart for a strong trend to follow before you start looking for that trend. Define your parameters according to your sector, time-frame, TA skills etc., then look for those criteria and those only. If you're trend-following, ignore what people say / think.

Rouge said:

How did you guys actually learn trading?

Ex. Did you guys read a specific few books/ watch videos on technical analysis and then try and see if you could identify patterns paper trading?

I am just perplexed as to how I really start with self education and practice, as when I look at something I feel as if I am jumping all over the place and accomplishing nothing.

Click to expand...

i have learned from books, downloaded courses, youtube, podcasts, websites, people on forums, experience, and reviewing my own trading