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Before I say anything I would like to thank Big Mike for this wonderful website. I am glad to have found a website where traders don't keep their idea's hidden.
I am sure I am not the only one to be impressed by your long time experience. Would you like to share some of your trading idea's/strategies with some of your fellow traders in here?
By the way, how did you do with the internet burst? I know I lost everything back then, and lost a BIG chunk in 2008 trying to pick the bottom. But I am still trading and doing ok if I flat all positions end of day.
In 1997, I started trading equities and options on equities in my spare time. I read a bunch of books on fundamental and technical analysis. Like anyone throwing darts from 1997 to 1999, I made a decent ROI, but not spectacular.
In 2000, I lost everything -- maybe $75k. I was very disappointed and embarrassed because trading was something I really wanted to be good at and clearly I wasn't. So I stopped trading. Over the past 10 years, I've continued to read, learn and "dabble" -- mostly with options on equities. I've gone to some classes on system development (Van Tharp) and on options (with the OptionNerd). I've kept bets small but really haven't outperformed the market.
Until this year. This year, I decided two things: (1) I'd give the options a rest and see if I could "win" using simpler instruments and (2) I'd start putting what I'd learned over the last 10 years a little more "on the line". In other words, I'd really re-start trading on a regular basis for the first time in 10+ years.
So, since May of this year I've been trading a basket of futures. I've done great -- from my start in May until now, I'm up about 90%. I'm excited by the performance but at the same time I'm also pretty scared -- I was doing pretty well in 1999 and then it all fell apart. Its taken me a long time to re-build my trading stake and I don't want to lose it again. I'm not sure if I'm that much better than I was in 1999, or if I've just gotten lucky for the last 6 months, or I've just hit a short-term set of market conditions that have worked well for how I trade (discretionary trend / breakout trader). This last one is probably my biggest fear.
I'd like to quit my day job and trade full-time over the next couple of years if I can maintain my performance -- a big if.
I currently use ThinkOrSwim to trade and also started using TradingDiary Pro to track trades and identify trends in my performance. I've been thinking about trying Market System Analyzer and would love to know if anyone has used it and whether they find it useful for position sizing analysis.
Hi Big Mike & All,
Very nice site, I'm glad I've found it.
About me: I've started round 4 years ago with stocks and after about 1 year with CFDs and Knock-Outs. I've also played a bit with options, spent some money on options books and lost a bit on some trades, till I've read Cottle's "Options trading - The hidden Reality" and I've had the revelation that options are not for me.
Didn't blow any account because I was very lucky (I can tell you some brilliant trades I did which could have easily accomplished that). And I've quit long time ago to blame somebody else (mainly PPT and GS) for my losing trades.
I've read plenty of trading books and I do have plenty in queue to read, altough there are very few which really worth the time & money - from my trading style point of view Brooks and Duddella raised very high standards but anyway I like to read books and you can never know where you can find some nice ideas.
About 6 weeks ago I've decided to start trading futures so I've opened a sim account for NT+Zen. I plan to scalp the FDAX (tried also ES but it's simply not fitting to me). Paper trading was a good experience, it clearly helped me to find some problems with my trading strategy, but the real stuff is with real money so in about 2 weeks I plan to go live with AMP/NT+Zen (if somebody knows a better option for FDAX please let me know).
Look forward to learning from this community and helping out where I can.
sorin
Hello to Big Mike and everyone in this fantastic forum,
About me, I work 9-5 and have pager for offhour support, I'm into trading the last 2 years, have burnt / learnt myself a lot, and is still learning whenever I find time. The reason why I trade though have a 9-5 job is that, I don't want to be a job dependant all the time and for some reason if I'm out of my job, then I have something else to support my family. I'm mostly dealing with commodity futures recently, as I have all kind of restrictions with my employer for trading stocks, etfs funds etc, and commodity futures are the only things which is allowed. Again as 9-5 I can't trade during day and I'm not interested in position trading. I trade the PM 7-10 and AM 6-8, so I miss all actions, but I get returns which is not bad at all.
everyone!
