First day in the business - It is for me, so how do I get started?

[melsen]

Greetings readers,

Let me first start out by apologizing for any possible spelling errors or grammatical errors. English isn't my first language, so I'm going to try and write this to the best of my abilities.

I'm 29 years old and live in Denmark. I have a normal income and have started thinking ahead. Thinking about me and my girlfriends future. We are going to buy our first house early next year, and are naturally looking forward to it.

How do I take charge of my own future financially. How do I improve our financial status in the future. Someone I know have managed by stock trading to make a decent amount of money and I was thinking. This is something you can do from home. This is something you can do on the side in your spare time.

My whole goal with this would be to possibly be able to have paid down the mortgage on the house perhaps 5 or 10 years earlier by doing this. But, can I learn?

I've been reading a bit up on the net on this and have stumbled upon the site: http://www.tradesoeasy.com - This site offers a 70 page book where the author have made a system that obviously (from what he states himself) works. I presume this is day trading since he states it requires time each day.

Now, I have absolutely no financial education. I work as a systems administrator normally.

So basically.. my question is. Can this be done. Can this be taught. And just as important.. this community here at T2W - is this for beginners as well as professional traders or have I overstepped by bounderies by coming to this site asking for guidance in the world of investments?

To cut this short (yeah.. I know that's too late) - Where do I begin.
Advice ? Perhaps even some good websites to learn from.... ?


Yours sincerely,

Allan Melsen

 

[TheBramble]

Melsen, welcome to t2w.

No, you're asking in the right place.

There is a general bias of opinion on these boards against any commercially available system being a good investment. The rationale being that if a system were good enough to make money consistently in all markets, why would the developer sell it - as opposed to simply trading it for themselves?

However, the good news is that the best system you can trade will be the one you devise yourself. It will cost you nothing except time, effort, long-hours after you finish your day job, a period of paper-trading and then your first foray into real money trading, which will teach you (the hard way probably!) even more trading lessons.

A really great start for you would be to take a look at the 'First Steps' forum...and go from there.

Bear in mind, it usually takes a lot longer to reach your financial goals through trading than you ever expect. And the more of a rush you are in, the quicker you'll come unstuck. I'd plan on keeping the day-job until you are pulling consistent profits sufficient to maintain your minimum living commitments. Others may have a different take on this depending on their risk comfort levels.

Good luck.

 

[stevespray]

Melsen.....

I would agree completely with Tony. Most systems promoted by various companies promise much but deliver little. If I wrote a trading system which claimed to do half as much of some of these systems then there is no way I'd share it with anyone apart from my closed trading friends. If any system was that good then major banks and financial institutions would be keen to use it and most likely on an exclusive basis.
The key to any system is the money management. This is down to you and not always the system. You will have to prepare yourself psychologically - this is where many fail. The chances are you will make more losing trades than winning ones. The key is to make your fewer winning trades pay more than you lose on your net losing trades.

Steve.

 

[melsen]

Thank you very much for your replies.

Let me point out first that I hadn't ever imagined becoming good enough at this to actually earn so much money that I could quit my day-time job... who knows.. maybe I will, yet that wasn't the plan.

My financial goals aren't something I would imagine being able to reach in the next 5-10 years... But if they would enable me to be debt-free 5 years earlier, then I'd say it had already been worth all the time.

It's surely a confusing jungle to dwelve into, and I certainly hope I can find some sort of 'newbie' guide so to speak that will help me take the first steps into this. It seems exciting for sure.

 

[FTSE Beater]

It's surely a confusing jungle to dwelve into, and I certainly hope I can find some sort of 'newbie' guide so to speak that will help me take the first steps into this. It seems exciting for sure.

Hi Melsen

You can find the T2W First steps guide here - http://www.trade2win.com/boards/showthread.php?t=8332
Full of useful information to get you started

 

[TheBramble]

Let me point out first that I hadn't ever imagined becoming good enough at this to actually earn so much money that I could quit my day-time job... who knows.. maybe I will, yet that wasn't the plan.

My financial goals aren't something I would imagine being able to reach in the next 5-10 years... But if they would enable me to be debt-free 5 years earlier, then I'd say it had already been worth all the time.

You've already decided how limited you want your success to be? I know I suggested being realistic in your expectations, but on the other hand...one of the major aspects of trading is the Psychological attitude of the Trader.

It might help you to consider taking a more positive view of your capabilities in trading. It certainly can't hurt and there's no downside in doing it. You can't say that for many things in life!

 

[donaldduke]

Read the following classic books on trading:

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre
Market Wizards by Jack Schwager
Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom by Dr Van Tharp
Come in to My trading Room by Dr Alex Elder
Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas

That will be much better money spent than buying that 70 page book.

Unless you are naturally gifted or can find a really good mentor to help you, it will take several years
before you become the trader you want to be, so keep your positions small until you know what you are
doing ie try not lose too much while learning.

If you just want to be financially free but dont want to develop your own systems then i would recommend you also read:

Safe Stratagies for Financial Freedom by Van Tharp et al.

It costs about 15 GBP or 25 Euros. And has lots of investment ideas and ways to reduce debt
quickly.

 

[melsen]

You've already decided how limited you want your success to be? I know I suggested being realistic in your expectations, but on the other hand...one of the major aspects of trading is the Psychological attitude of the Trader.

Well... I don't know if I decided... I'm just trying to be realistic and don't jump overly anxiously into the business, risking too much and losing too much.

It might help you to consider taking a more positive view of your capabilities in trading. It certainly can't hurt and there's no downside in doing it. You can't say that for many things in life!

Oh actually I have quite a positive view of my capeabilities... if I didn't believe I could become good enough at this to make money on it.. then I would be stupid to even try =)

I'm just sitting here as a beginner looking into it all.. seeing the entire jungle for the first time.. then I see a tonnes of various programs that have so much functionality, bars, graphs and who knows what.. and then there's 1000 different ways of trading.. so it's kinda like...
"Where in heaven do I begin... "

Oh how I wish I had a tutor =) hehehe

 

[melsen]

Read the following classic books on trading:

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre
Market Wizards by Jack Schwager
Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom by Dr Van Tharp
Come in to My trading Room by Dr Alex Elder
Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas

That will be much better money spent than buying that 70 page book.

Unless you are naturally gifted or can find a really good mentor to help you, it will take several years
before you become the trader you want to be, so keep your positions small until you know what you are
doing ie try not lose too much while learning.

If you just want to be financially free but dont want to develop your own systems then i would recommend you also read:

Safe Stratagies for Financial Freedom by Van Tharp et al.

It costs about 15 GBP or 25 Euros. And has lots of investment ideas and ways to reduce debt
quickly.

Oh this is awesome.. thanks a bunch for the references....

And let me just say again... I'm thrilled to see how friendly and helpful people here are. This certainly seems to be a really friendly community.

 

[Gardan]

Hi Melsen, I am new (newbie)to this investment stuff too. I would highly recomend as FTSE beater did earlier the "T2W First steps" guide, Take your time with it and read it twice if possible.It's a great starting point and has really easy to use methods.
I agree with you this is the most user freindly sight I have found,with lot's of experienced traders willing to help for free!
Good Luck!

 

[Roberto]

Hi, Melsen ... if you want another (only slightly different) opinion about books ... I remember when I started that I found the Dr. Alexander Elder books particularly interesting and useful, but I'd certainly recommend reading "Trading For A Living" before "Come Into My Trading Room". I also found the Jack Schwager books (Market Wizards and New Market Wizards) interesting and helpful, and I unreservedly recommend the Van K Tharp book also mentioned above somewhere (Trade Your Way To Financial Freedom). Another book in very similar vein, from which I learnt a lot, was "Beyond Technical Analysis" by Tushar S. Chande. Kahn's book "Technical Analysis Plain and Simple" was also very helpful to me right at the start. Good luck!

 

[Ricter]

You wanna work at home, work on your home. Hire a contractor to build one for you, up to weather sheathing, major plumbing and electrical, and do the rest yourself. That'll be a massive return on your investment, a well paying second job, and you'll know something truly useful at the end.

 

[winod]

The secret in trading is not how many page a book is or how difficulter the system, how better.

The most simple system or the book with the fewest page can hide a good or best system.

So maybe the book of 70 pages is the best investment you ever do in your live , what will lead you to financial freedom.

So Melson I think if you are smart, you will fully try to understand this kind of message....but everything in life is your own choice your own responsebillity.

Please forgive my bad english writing.

Ciao

 

[chump]

I'll offer something different..you said your goal was to payoff your mortgage early and your interest in trading was to achieve that.....if that is it then forget trading, just start increasing your mortgage payments (if your mortgage allows that facility)..unless you are the exception to the general rule I would suggest that the costs involved in learning how to trade will probably be more than the extra funding required from you now to payoff that mortgage by increasing your payments early....don't take that as a negative..the reply is specifically addressed to your stated goal...on the other hand if you are as wacky as the rest of us about trading by all means follow the advice given by the other posters...

Cheers

 

[newstart]

I would agree with DonaldDuke especially Reminscences of a Stock Market Operator
one of the best teaching aides I have read and keep on reading,

If you need to work for a living as I did then I think that swing trading should be your forte combined with bed and breakfasting.