Day Trading Classes

[NNNNOOOOONAN]

My situation:

Just turned 21 and retired from poker. I graduated H.S. at 16 and started college right away, then quickly dropped out to play poker. I've played NL600 6-max and 30/60 LHE for the last 3 years and just recently quit and took a job in insurance consulting.

The job is good and i'm making ~65k + benefits for the first couple years. It's sort of boring though and i'm wondering what else there is out there.

I've always wondered what it is that day traders do, and know absolutely nothing about trading at all. I'm wondering if there is such a thing as a Day Trading Class. I read Barrin's thread about prop trading and it looks sort of fishy to me. I don't want to invest a lot of cash into this first starting out, but am willing to pay for the classes and what not.

This whole idea may be way off base of reality, but maybe someone out there has a suggestion. Basically I'm just already sick of a get up everyday at the same time, go to work, go home knowing you check type of deal and am looking for a something a little more interesting.

Thanks.

[pig4bill]

You don't want to invest a lot of cash starting out? Well, you're going to have to.

$25k is the minimum size account for daytrading. Add another $5k for minor losses right off the bat. You can probably take an actual course for $3500 or join a pay chatroom and hope to pick it up by osmosis. Oh, and there's that thing about losses while you're trying to learn - figure another $25k IF you are able to pick it up quickly and have natural talent.

Not to mention the quitting the job thing so you can actually watch the market. It's not like you can surf the web for 30 seconds every half hour and daytrade.

As for being sick of getting up every day at the same time, the market opens every day at the same time, 9:30 a.m. If you live on the west coast, that's 6:30, and you really should be up and scanning the morning market news two hours before that.

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]
You don't want to invest a lot of cash starting out? Well, you're going to have to.

$25k is the minimum size account for daytrading. Add another $5k for minor losses right off the bat. You can probably take an actual course for $3500 or join a pay chatroom and hope to pick it up by osmosis. Oh, and there's that thing about losses while you're trying to learn - figure another $25k IF you are able to pick it up quickly and have natural talent.

Not to mention the quitting the job thing so you can actually watch the market. It's not like you can surf the web for 30 seconds every half hour and daytrade.

As for being sick of getting up every day at the same time, the market opens every day at the same time, 9:30 a.m. If you live on the west coast, that's 6:30, and you really should be up and scanning the morning market news two hours before that.

[/ QUOTE ]

wow dude, daytrading sounds AWESOME!!! where do i sign up!!??

Barron

[NNNNOOOOONAN]

[ QUOTE ]
You don't want to invest a lot of cash starting out? Well, you're going to have to.

$25k is the minimum size account for daytrading. Add another $5k for minor losses right off the bat. You can probably take an actual course for $3500 or join a pay chatroom and hope to pick it up by osmosis. Oh, and there's that thing about losses while you're trying to learn - figure another $25k IF you are able to pick it up quickly and have natural talent.

Not to mention the quitting the job thing so you can actually watch the market. It's not like you can surf the web for 30 seconds every half hour and daytrade.

As for being sick of getting up every day at the same time, the market opens every day at the same time, 9:30 a.m. If you live on the west coast, that's 6:30, and you really should be up and scanning the morning market news two hours before that.

[/ QUOTE ]

the getting up at the same time every day thing was really more a problem with doing it and knowing exactly how much money i'm bringing home every week. not my thing.

and as far as the money goes, i'm obviously willing to have ~25k to put into something, my issue is being able to learn about it, what it is, how to be successful, how it works, and things like that without just putting 25k into an account and going at it.

[Shoe]

[ QUOTE ]
You don't want to invest a lot of cash starting out? Well, you're going to have to.

$25k is the minimum size account for daytrading. Add another $5k for minor losses right off the bat. You can probably take an actual course for $3500 or join a pay chatroom and hope to pick it up by osmosis. Oh, and there's that thing about losses while you're trying to learn - figure another $25k IF you are able to pick it up quickly and have natural talent.

Not to mention the quitting the job thing so you can actually watch the market. It's not like you can surf the web for 30 seconds every half hour and daytrade.

As for being sick of getting up every day at the same time, the market opens every day at the same time, 9:30 a.m. If you live on the west coast, that's 6:30, and you really should be up and scanning the morning market news two hours before that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see any reason why anyone couldn't learn how to day-trade for free (with the exception being if you are buying/selling so much at once you are actually moving the market).

If you don't have a job, or are able to to take enough time off to in essence, "learn at the play money tables", I don't see why you can't sit at home with a pen and paper, open an account at scottrade, and use their streaming quotes to watch the market. Instead of trading with real money, write down when/what you would buy at what price, and when/what you would sell for what price. It might not be exact to the penny, but you should have a pretty good idea if your trades would be making money or not.

There is no reason to just say you are going to lose $25k no matter what. That just sounds outrageous to me and there is no way you could not educate yourself enough for free to greatly minimize the loss you would take.

The perfect analogy of course is learning to play poker. You don't have to start out at $30/$60 and lose $25k to learn how to play the game. It can be done for virtually free. Start out at the free tables, once you beat them try the penny tables.... keep working your way up until your a pro (or reach your limit).

Yes, you need $25k to open a daytrading account, but that in no way means you need to invest all $25k at once or even in a single stock. After you are confident from your "free trades" that you made on paper, start out with some smallish trades around $500 to $1,000 each to get comfortable with the market, and work your way up from there.

I also, would be willing to pay for an education or classes to speed up the process, but i would NEVER make a trade(s) with the expectation of losing money. That's not to say there won't be growing pains along the way, just I don't see why those growing pains can't be kept to a minimum with a proper approach.

The key of course would be keeping yourself honest. Write down every trade you would make on paper and don't omit anything. Buy at the ask price and sell at the bid price. Don't make any assumptions or omit any bad trades. Don't start tradign with real money until you can win on paper. Learn from each trade you make. What went right, what went wrong, and why?

[emon87]

Shoe,

In one word, tilt.

[pig4bill]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You don't want to invest a lot of cash starting out? Well, you're going to have to.

$25k is the minimum size account for daytrading. Add another $5k for minor losses right off the bat. You can probably take an actual course for $3500 or join a pay chatroom and hope to pick it up by osmosis. Oh, and there's that thing about losses while you're trying to learn - figure another $25k IF you are able to pick it up quickly and have natural talent.

Not to mention the quitting the job thing so you can actually watch the market. It's not like you can surf the web for 30 seconds every half hour and daytrade.

As for being sick of getting up every day at the same time, the market opens every day at the same time, 9:30 a.m. If you live on the west coast, that's 6:30, and you really should be up and scanning the morning market news two hours before that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see any reason why anyone couldn't learn how to day-trade for free (with the exception being if you are buying/selling so much at once you are actually moving the market).

If you don't have a job, or are able to to take enough time off to in essence, "learn at the play money tables", I don't see why you can't sit at home with a pen and paper, open an account at scottrade, and use their streaming quotes to watch the market. Instead of trading with real money, write down when/what you would buy at what price, and when/what you would sell for what price. It might not be exact to the penny, but you should have a pretty good idea if your trades would be making money or not.

There is no reason to just say you are going to lose $25k no matter what. That just sounds outrageous to me and there is no way you could not educate yourself enough for free to greatly minimize the loss you would take.

The perfect analogy of course is learning to play poker. You don't have to start out at $30/$60 and lose $25k to learn how to play the game. It can be done for virtually free. Start out at the free tables, once you beat them try the penny tables.... keep working your way up until your a pro (or reach your limit).

Yes, you need $25k to open a daytrading account, but that in no way means you need to invest all $25k at once or even in a single stock. After you are confident from your "free trades" that you made on paper, start out with some smallish trades around $500 to $1,000 each to get comfortable with the market, and work your way up from there.

I also, would be willing to pay for an education or classes to speed up the process, but i would NEVER make a trade(s) with the expectation of losing money. That's not to say there won't be growing pains along the way, just I don't see why those growing pains can't be kept to a minimum with a proper approach.

The key of course would be keeping yourself honest. Write down every trade you would make on paper and don't omit anything. Buy at the ask price and sell at the bid price. Don't make any assumptions or omit any bad trades. Don't start tradign with real money until you can win on paper. Learn from each trade you make. What went right, what went wrong, and why?

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh huh. You know anybody that's done this? My post was based on being in several different market forums, pay chatrooms, and talking with successful traders and instructors over the years.

[emon87]

You could get a job at a trading firm if you're interested in trading but don't want to go it alone.

I'm serious here - your poker resume will make you stand out at a number of trading firms.

[NNNNOOOOONAN]

[ QUOTE ]
You could get a job at a trading firm if you're interested in trading but don't want to go it alone.

I'm serious here - your poker resume will make you stand out at a number of trading firms.

[/ QUOTE ]

i guess this is kind of what i might sort of be talking about.

[ifckladyluck]

buy and read "trading for a living"

if you like it then come step 2 =)