What is your occupation?
Why is it important?
Wanted to know if you were in finance and if you weren’t how you’ve learned everything you have. I want to know more about trading but don’t really know where to start.
quote:
I want to know more about trading but don't really know where to start.
quit your job, open a futures account. mortgage whatever’s needed to get to the account size you desire. I recommend at least $200K
Trade for a living. there is no quicker way to learn.
I did this circa 2000 - daytraded NQ futures - in and out many times during the day.
I made and lost $50k many times before 9:45 am.
This is only partial tongue in cheek. Paper trading is fine, but you need real trades to see if your system is robust.
I was back to my real job within 6 months. I make more money with less stress there.
that being said, I believe you can “trade” on a 6 month horizon with simple mechanical systems, and beat the market.
Hey Billder, I am not in finance, but have had to learn a lot of financial lessons the hard way! 
. I’ve dabbled in the stock stuff my whole life, but really only took a great interest in it a few years ago. When I do business travel, I used to buy a finance\investing book at the airport and read it on my trip. I went through probably 20-25 books or so that way. Also, I try to learn as much as I can about every method available out there. Do research on the web and a lot of paper trading\investing, etc. It’s probably better not to start with real money, but instead sign up for a game like caps.fool.com, etc and see how you do against other active players. Remember, you have 2 goals. The first goal is “not to lose money”… And the second goal is “beat the market”… It’s great if you make 20% in a stock, but not if the market went up 30%. That’s what the caps game is all about - your performance relative to the market.
As PeaPod mentions though, “real money” brings your emotions into the game. As an early investor\trader, your emotions will usually take over and make you get in at the worst time and get out at the worst time almost guaranteeing you to lose money. After you are confident with paper trading, just start small and remember that you aren’t looking to hit homeruns, but slow and steady wins the game.
One more thing… It’s really easy to pick out “good companies” to invest in. But 80% of it is knowing WHEN TO BUY those companies and having the patience to wait for your investment idea to unfold. THOSE are the hard parts…
10-4, grassyass.
best futures mkt is real estate. Buy low sell high. This is time to buy. I have a friend who wrote the book Weekend Millionaire’s Guide to investing in real estate.
He just put in offers on 19 properties. He is like a kid in candy store.
If you buy a property with 20% down and after 2 years it goes up 20 then you have made 100% on your money.
BTW - The formula he uses to determine price he will pay is NOI. Net Operating Income.
If he can rent it for more than it cost him to keep it then he buys it.
He has been doing it for 30 years and his Net rents total over 600k/month.
The first prop he bought was a cinder block piece of crxx.
You have to start somewhere.