83purerange1
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The inside story of a 17 years old trader
Constantly going up and down; constantly worrying about positions; constantly thinking about the market. Doesn’t it sound miserable? The funny thing is I am still doing it now.
Most people believe trading in the stock market must be cool and easy. Wrong. My experience has proven to me that in fact it is an extremely painful, emotionally exhausting and lonely. The only reason I am in this ‘game’ is money.
Five years ago, I started up trading with a seed capital of GBP490 and now my current balance up to 21/9/11 is GBP1288.92. Annualized return of 21.341%. There is one word to describe the result: astonishing. Five years ago, I had no knowledge of what blue chips stocks are but now I have to pay attention to the Dollar Index, Fed’s action, FTSE100, CDS basis point of different underlying assets and…
The purpose for me to write this article is I just wish other teenagers who are starting or have started trading to know how trading is like in reality. Paper trading does not equal to real trading simply because you never test your emotions. Without testing your emotions, you never know your ability in the real markets where everyone is behind the computer screen and waiting to take away your hard-earned money without feeling sorry or bad. In the past five years of trading, the market has been the greatest teacher so far in my life because every day I learnt something new from the market and constantly learning does warn me out. I am a human and therefore am subject to human weakness.
At this point, you may ask why don’t you just leave and enjoy your last year of teenage life. The answer to the question is trading is like taking drugs and it is very additive. Today, you made GBP 100; tomorrow you would want to make GBP 200 and the day the after you would want to make GBP 1000; and so on. There is no ending to it.
I am sure you have heard the phrase ‘greed is good’ from the film: Wall Street money never sleeps. To a certain extent, I do agree with this statement but excessive greed leads to a problem, which could be disastrous. Moreover, there is a cost for my success in the equity market.
While most teenagers are going to party; talking about girls; getting drunk; revising for their tests; I am reading financial times, using technical analysis to analyse trends and reading financial books to enhance my skills. It is lonely. Most successful traders are very lonely because the crowd is always wrong. Jesse Livermore, the most successful speculator is famous not only because the money he gained from the great crash in 1929 but also his loneliness. Not many people would able to withstand the loneliness because it is against human nature. No one would like to be a loner including myself, however in order to be gain capital we must be a loner, which is emotionally painful.
Gaining capital is not the important part of trading because it does not teach us how to avoid losses which is actually the killer in the market. I always remember trade that I lost money in but not trade that I gain because I cannot afford to make the same mistakes. In reality, I lose money too even I endeavour to minimise the possibility of losing because I am a human too and thus subject to human weakness.
In conclusion, I just wish everyone would be fine in this bear market caused by European’s debt crisis. There are many aspects in our lives, which is more important than trading. For me personally, is to get a girlfriend. What about you?
Constantly going up and down; constantly worrying about positions; constantly thinking about the market. Doesn’t it sound miserable? The funny thing is I am still doing it now.
Most people believe trading in the stock market must be cool and easy. Wrong. My experience has proven to me that in fact it is an extremely painful, emotionally exhausting and lonely. The only reason I am in this ‘game’ is money.
Five years ago, I started up trading with a seed capital of GBP490 and now my current balance up to 21/9/11 is GBP1288.92. Annualized return of 21.341%. There is one word to describe the result: astonishing. Five years ago, I had no knowledge of what blue chips stocks are but now I have to pay attention to the Dollar Index, Fed’s action, FTSE100, CDS basis point of different underlying assets and…
The purpose for me to write this article is I just wish other teenagers who are starting or have started trading to know how trading is like in reality. Paper trading does not equal to real trading simply because you never test your emotions. Without testing your emotions, you never know your ability in the real markets where everyone is behind the computer screen and waiting to take away your hard-earned money without feeling sorry or bad. In the past five years of trading, the market has been the greatest teacher so far in my life because every day I learnt something new from the market and constantly learning does warn me out. I am a human and therefore am subject to human weakness.
At this point, you may ask why don’t you just leave and enjoy your last year of teenage life. The answer to the question is trading is like taking drugs and it is very additive. Today, you made GBP 100; tomorrow you would want to make GBP 200 and the day the after you would want to make GBP 1000; and so on. There is no ending to it.
I am sure you have heard the phrase ‘greed is good’ from the film: Wall Street money never sleeps. To a certain extent, I do agree with this statement but excessive greed leads to a problem, which could be disastrous. Moreover, there is a cost for my success in the equity market.
While most teenagers are going to party; talking about girls; getting drunk; revising for their tests; I am reading financial times, using technical analysis to analyse trends and reading financial books to enhance my skills. It is lonely. Most successful traders are very lonely because the crowd is always wrong. Jesse Livermore, the most successful speculator is famous not only because the money he gained from the great crash in 1929 but also his loneliness. Not many people would able to withstand the loneliness because it is against human nature. No one would like to be a loner including myself, however in order to be gain capital we must be a loner, which is emotionally painful.
Gaining capital is not the important part of trading because it does not teach us how to avoid losses which is actually the killer in the market. I always remember trade that I lost money in but not trade that I gain because I cannot afford to make the same mistakes. In reality, I lose money too even I endeavour to minimise the possibility of losing because I am a human too and thus subject to human weakness.
In conclusion, I just wish everyone would be fine in this bear market caused by European’s debt crisis. There are many aspects in our lives, which is more important than trading. For me personally, is to get a girlfriend. What about you?
