Trading as a living

bigfreddiel

How many of you MSE members make your living from trading?

What capital did you start with and what returns are you making?

What is your trading strategy, short/medium/long term trades, spread betting, CFDs.

cheers

fj

jonesMUFCforever

I would think the only people on here doing that would be the unemployed.

Investing short term is just gambling and in the end the house will always win IMO.

smeagold

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

I would think the only people on here doing that would be the unemployed.

Investing short term is just gambling and in the end the house will always win IMO.

Rubbish. How many people on the dole do you know with the money to risk, or the intelligence to think, to place money on trades? they bet on football and who will win strictly come dancing. Which judging by your name is what you do. Obviously your no trader.

The initial steps of trading are often started with small amounts of money while you learn the ropes, that can take months. If you have appitude and your consitently getting 70-80% of your trades correct the desire to increase your risk capital to increase your trade size becomes very strong. cash can be often pulled from other accounts to fund the trade addiction, and it is an addiction but if your good at trading it can be a profitable one.

There are countless ways to trade: scalping, swing trading, intraday, fundamental, whatever. My only advice is to specialise. choose your market: financials, forex, commodities, small caps whatever and learn your market well.

you can make a good living trading but be aware its very hard work, sleepless nights, continual research and analysis, ups downs etc it can take over your life but hell making money is never easy.

if you got a brain, use it.

purch

What capital did you start with and what returns are you making?

A lot, and a lot.

Investing short term is just gambling and in the end the house will always win IMO

First thing to remember, is that there is no house.

Therefore the house cannot win ever !!!

Want_to_be_free

smeagold wrote: »

Rubbish. How many people on the dole do you know with the money to risk, or the intelligence to think, to place money on trades? they bet on football and who will win strictly come dancing. Which judging by your name is what you do. Obviously your no trader.

The initial steps of trading are often started with small amounts of money while you learn the ropes, that can take months. If you have appitude and your consitently getting 70-80% of your trades correct the desire to increase your risk capital to increase your trade size becomes very strong. cash can be often pulled from other accounts to fund the trade addiction, and it is an addiction but if your good at trading it can be a profitable one.

There are countless ways to trade: scalping, swing trading, intraday, fundamental, whatever. My only advice is to specialise. choose your market: financials, forex, commodities, small caps whatever and learn your market well.

you can make a good living trading but be aware its very hard work, sleepless nights, continual research and analysis, ups downs etc it can take over your life but hell making money is never easy.

if you got a brain, use it.

Thanks and no thanks for this post.

''No thanks'' part of is because of the statement ''How many people on the dole do you know with the money to risk, or the intelligence to think, to place money on trades?''

I don't know any people on the dole and never been on the dole, but I still think that this statement is very offensive. I guess this is an open form and everybody can say anything hence as you are allowed to say it, then I am allowed too.

And ''thanks'' part goes into giving very good advice and also mentioning how hard it is. People take couple of courses, think that it is easy and jump into trading. Well I guess , if there are no losers , there are no winners.

I want to trade but won't dream of doing it while working full time. Hopefully next year, when I am no longer employed, I will start. One of the important aspects that I learnt, you need to be emotionaly stable. This is fine but why most traders are too arrogant, this is the question I cannot answer.

LongTermLurker

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

I would think the only people on here doing that would be the unemployed.

I think Jones was pointing out how anyone with a dayjob would find it impossibly hard to find the time to do the research, let alone successfully trade throughout the day, picking exactly the right moment - unless, of course, their day job is as a trader at LSE.

smeagold wrote: »

Rubbish. How many people on the dole do you know with the money to risk, or the intelligence to think, to place money on trades? they bet on football and who will win strictly come dancing. Which judging by your name is what you do. Obviously your no trader.

The initial steps of trading are often started with small amounts of money while you learn the ropes, that can take months. If you have appitude and your consitently getting 70-80% of your trades correct the desire to increase your risk capital to increase your trade size becomes very strong. cash can be often pulled from other accounts to fund the trade addiction, and it is an addiction but if your good at trading it can be a profitable one.

There are countless ways to trade: scalping, swing trading, intraday, fundamental, whatever. My only advice is to specialise. choose your market: financials, forex, commodities, small caps whatever and learn your market well.

you can make a good living trading but be aware its very hard work, sleepless nights, continual research and analysis, ups downs etc it can take over your life but hell making money is never easy.

if you got a brain, use it.

Don't know what job you do, but when I come home from work the last thing I have energy for is to start all over again.

You've made some pretty damning judgements there, about Jones and a big chunk of society as a whole. I was on the dole once, for a long time actually. I've got a brain, I use it and it's served me well, but I can't think how anyone can do a day job complex enough to be mentally rewarding and still find the time to carry out the research and trading at the rate required.

BTW, your spelling & grammar's crap!

bobbyj_2

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

I would think the only people on here doing that would be the unemployed.

Investing short term is just gambling and in the end the house will always win IMO.

what a complete gormless know it all. Pathetic. I might pm you my trading account from this year to allow you to choke on your tea.

LongTermLurker

@bobbyj - how many hours a day do you work in your non-trading job, how many hours research do you have to put in and how do you manage to pick the right time to trade while at work?

Your boss, and corporate security/internet/telephone access policies must be surprisingly relaxed. I'm impressed :cool:

(edit - I'll add I'm not so sure about Jones' second line, cos I'm sure there's an element of skill involved that takes it beyond gambling - the key point is I don't believe anyone has the time and energy to do it properly as an amateur)

bobbyj_2

I thought the question was trading for a living not working as well as trading? Many many people on here know very little about the stockmarket/trading/investing thing yet are more than happy to dismiss anything to do with it. It gets right up my nose when i read some of these comments from many who have probably never been near a trading platform etc.`I bet some of these muppets are more than happy to leave their pension to 'experts' all the while gladly paying 3%+ yearly management fees for a return often below what a tracker would give. Chortle.

LongTermLurker

bobbyj wrote: »

I thought the question was trading for a living not working as well as trading? Many many people on here know very little about the stockmarket/trading/investing thing yet are more than happy to dismiss anything to do with it. It gets right up my nose when i read some of these comments from many who have probably never been near a trading platform etc.`I bet some of these muppets are more than happy to leave their pension to 'experts' all the while gladly paying 3%+ yearly management fees for a return often below what a tracker would give. Chortle.

I don't profess to know about trading and don't knock people wo think they can make a success of it - good luck if you're good enough.

My question/sarcasm was down to you and smeagold quoting Jones (no, I'm not he - wouldn't have owt to do with Manc scum ) where he talked about only being able to trade if you're on the dole - maybe the wrong words, as clearly someone could be fully employed as a independent trader, not have another job and not be claiming dole.

I think this thread could get unnecessarily heated and it's probably best not to dig too deep on the "dole or job" front. Suffice to say that day trading must surely be a full time occupation - I'm no expert though.

bigfreddiel

bobbyj wrote: »

I thought the question was trading for a living not working as well as trading? Many many people on here know very little about the stockmarket/trading/investing thing yet are more than happy to dismiss anything to do with it. It gets right up my nose when i read some of these comments from many who have probably never been near a trading platform etc.`I bet some of these muppets are more than happy to leave their pension to 'experts' all the while gladly paying 3%+ yearly management fees for a return often below what a tracker would give. Chortle.

bobbyj - you understood my question - who on this forum makes their living by trading alone, in other words its their job and only job.

To re-iterate the topic, how do you trade, how many hours do you put in each day, what returns do you make, etc etc, and no jokes like - how do you make a small fortune from trading, start with a large fortune!

fj