Professional Day Trader - AMA

[dr0832]

I am a professional day trader. I have been a member here since 2003. I first got into bodybuilding at that time, just a year after I started trading in 2002 at the bottom of the Dotcom bubble bursting. I took me 2 full years to learn how to trade and in that time I lost $25k in the market along with thousands from purchasing bogus DVD's, useless trading alert services, countless unhelpful trading books, and a number of online and live trading seminars. I have since then stayed consistently profitable since 2004.

I am a day trader which means I typically open and close my trades during a single trading day (8:00 AM EST to 6:00 PM EST). I occasionally will hold over night or for a several days for a swing trade as well. I generally stay in a position for a few minutes to a couple hours and my winning percentage is about 70%. I utilized a technical trading system and ignore the fundamentals almost entirely. I trade stocks (from from $.50 penny stocks all the way up to $1000 blue chips, along with bonds, options, futures and Forex).

I figured there are probably some people here who are interested in trading but don't know where to begin. I had a post here many years ago but I am not sure what happened to it. I figured I would do an (AMA) ask me anything.

 

[ILIFT2LIVE]

How to make a lot of money fast


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[dr0832]

Well this is not the answer you will want to hear but I am going to be 100% honest with you. People have this idea that the stock market is a get rich quick scheme. The reality is this is so far from the truth, it isn't even funny. To make money fast in the market you have to (A.) get very lucky, or (B.) Know what you are doing and start out with a large amount of money (Maybe $500,000+). Alternatively you can also start with a large amount and get lucky, but if you start with a small amount, even if you know what you are doing, you will not make money fast because like anything else in life, it takes money to make money.

All these guru's out there that say they turned $2000 in to $2 Million are either lying or they did it in the dotcom bubble when all stocks went up for 1.5 years and everyone made money basically every single day, even if they had know idea what they were doing. The handful of other people that are this successful got very lucky in the beginning and eventually they had enough money so that they could actually start to make substantial amounts of profits assuming they learned how to manage their risk.

Trading is difficult to learn and you won't make a lot of money fast unless the above occurs. The big problem is you have to look at the potential to "make fast money" with a small amount as a % returns. Investing in the stock market (the S & P 500 over the last 100 years has resulted in only a 10% return per year on average! If you have a $2000 account that's only a measly $200 per year. But then you have this guy that is claiming to make 10000%+ return. While a 10000%+ certainly isn't impossible it's near impossible in a short period of time or even over years. Maybe .0000000001% will ever achieve this. This is why people are so uniformed about the realities of making money in the stock market. You have to have realistic expectations.

 

[dr0832]

Looks like this place really did die

 

[UberPump]

What's your technique, what signals are you looking for in the market? Do you use any scripts? Thanks

 

[MikeWilliamson]

Ah a fellow trader. Tell me what do you think of the prospects of South African Govt bonds working out?
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[UberPump]

Ah a fellow trader. Tell me what do you think of the prospects of South African Govt bonds working out?
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Sell!

 

[dr0832]

I trade a mean reversion trading strategy. I am a 100% technical trader which means I use modern technical analysis and chart reading to make trading decisions. I am a mechanical trader as well so I limit emotional decisions in my trading. I generally day trade meaning I close out my positions during a single trading day.

Sell!

 

[dr0832]

I don't gamble on stuff like this. I am not an investor nut instead a trader.

 

[XBiker]

Futures.io