Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
I'm new to trading, stocks and the market and wanted to know what would be the best way to learn? My friend would like me to learn Ninjatrader, indicators and I don't know how the market works. What do you suggest?
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
"Successful trading is one long journey, not a destination" Peter Borish Former Head of Research for Paul Tudor Jones speaking on conversations with John F. Carter
Well lets see, first off you should understand something very important, trading is a skill, being a surgeon, a professional golfer, a pilot are also skills. Trading takes as long to learn as the above-mentioned skills -- that’s years of effort not weeks. You know you cannot just sit down and fly a plane on hunches, don’t think you can trade the same way.
Before you begin be aware of anyone selling courses. There is a lot of “snake oil” sold to new traders. I just came from a seminar and four people each signed up for $10,000 each to learn nothing at all that will help them.
A few safe places on the net that teach some things about trading and charge little or nothing.
Here is a short list of books I've read and recommend. I am not a big reader of books in print, I tend to prefer on-line methods... but nonetheless, these are great reads and contain a lot of information that helped me.
204,203,200_PIsitb-stick …
Your broker can set you up a simulated account, which is called “paper trading”. Practice until you understand what you are doing. When you go live trade something simple and in very small values, such as an ETF like SPY and SP just to see what real trading is like, then graduate to the big leagues like futures.
Four important lessons:
There is no magic indicator, you can draw squiggles on your charts until you can’t see them any more and it will not make you trade better.
This can’t be easy, if it was somebody would already be doing it. This is a zero sum game, the only money in the market is put there by the players. If I profit tomorrow, it maybe from your mistake.
Amateurs study how to make money; professionals study how to control risk. Learn money management, it is very important. It is more than just setting stops. The voices of experience here all have “blown out” an account or two learning to trade. Tape these words to your monitor “Preserve Precious Capital”
Stay positive, you can win, but you must take your time and learn.
There are three or four NinjaTrader programming "tutorials" in the futures.io (formerly BMT) webinars section. Click webinars from top of any page. There are also thousands of code examples on the forum. Read the source line-by-line on simple indicators you understand, and you will begin to understand the code that drives them.
As noted previously, I would NOT buy any canned system right away if ever. If they worked that well, they wouldn't be the proverbial "secret". Everybody would use them.
The internet has a ton of free stuff. Spend your time before you spend your money. I've spent way too much time and money on stuff that doesn't work. I'd try to shy away from exotic indicators and strategies until you grasp the basics.
I have the book High Probability Trading Strategies by Robert Miner. I think it's pretty good. You can get it off Dynamic Traders website for about 1/2 price. Maybe $40 or so.
Interactive Brokers and Trader Kingdom have hours and hours of free webinars. Good stuff
IMO, you really need adequate risk capital to trade. Trading tight with scared money is a quick way to ruin. Trading is hard enough without being worried about blowing out your account in a couple of trades. If money is tight, maybe trade a small account with stocks or ETF's. Keeps exposure very low. Futures and commodities are a big boy's game. Better know what you're doing before you step in.
HTH
Edit to add....go look at the forum on vendor reviews. There are hundreds and hundreds of systems there. And every one will make you a millionaire in 30 seconds. Just ask them