North Carolina
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader, Tradestation
Trading: es
Posts: 644 since Nov 2011
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I think you should examine your psychology and why you lost the first time because it indicates conflict. For example, you use the term "hard earned money" and the phrase "temptation". I would, also, like to know what happened after you lost all your money. Did you continue to study markets? If not then why not ?
Futures trading is one of the most difficult types of trading to engage in. Why? Because, futures contracts represent large notional amounts of stock or other goods and that means that unless you have a very large account you will be highly leveraged. Leverage can be likened to speed in racing. The faster you go the more likely you are to blow out (crash). Because futures contracts are fixed multiplier, if you trade futures the only way to slow down is to trade a larger account.
Most futures traders are at a professional or semi-professional level. While it is possible to trade futures with a small account (say 7k or less), the entire account is typically viewed as risk capital and expendable.
If you are motivated though to pursue the path, you should do an assessment of your strengths and think about the sort of relative advantages you can bring to the table. Examples of relative advantages would be high level of market cognition from studying markets over many years, programming ability, statistical or mathematical advantage, large amounts of capital, economic theory, etc. Once you identify your unique strengths you will need to try to come up with a plan that best maximizes your advantages.
I would suggest to look at the webinars here. Read a lot of books and look for newer books that might be more relevant for current markets. More importantly, I would suggest you sim trade using the exact same specifications as to which you plan to live trade. Your sim trading should be focused with specific goals and end points for going live. Also, do not underestimate the amount of capital you will need. It is no use to become a great sim trader and discover you don't have enough money to actually trade.
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