The road to becoming a successful trader has been a long and interesting one for me. I made a feeble attempt to trade a couple years ago. I had Capital One as my broker and used iHUB for level two. Then I used a site called freestockcharts, or something like that, for my not so live charts. Yeah, what a setup!! I got lucky following a few Tim's alerts. Which I learned real quick not to do! Learn from them, don't follow them. Ever. So after a few nice wins then a staggering series of losses I decided I need to study.
I stopped trading with real money and started paper trading. I started learning somethings like candlestick patterns, how to find support and resistance how to find percent gainers and learned what Earnings winners are. I also learned the hard way. Don't ever guess earnings! No matter what the chart is doing leading up to the release. I got Fk'd on a EARS months ago because I guessed. Don't laugh lol. I knew better but held over night anyway... So I was familiar with the concepts and knew the meaning of each but I didn't really know them as intimately as I should. I also found out that I needed a real broker. So after some serious review I chose TD Ameritrade and use the ThinkorSwim platform. Very happy btw.
Back to paper trading. It's safe! I doubled my paper account in a couple months. I kept my position size inline with having a $2,500 dollar account. So 500-1,000 share buys.
This last October I tried trading with real money again and then suddenly I couldn't make a winning trade!?! Went back to paper, started winning again. What gives? Well I learned that the psychology of using and risking real money is a hell of a lot different than paper money! Paper money-Fine! Real money-not so fine! I ended up being unable to make a trade for the fear of losing my hard earned money! So I'm currently battling the laws of making a good entry. I'm getting over the fear of getting in the trade, but now I find I get out to soon because I want to profit and I want to have a winning trade. I'm leaving a lot on the table and I find that my losses are often bigger than my wins thanks to commissions. But I know what I need to work on now. $STUDY. Anyway, until next time.
Constantly learning!
Garrick
Good luck to ya sounds good to me
Good luck. focus on finding one winning strategy that suits your risks. Some people short some people long. I personally hunt for earnings winners and watch for a morning spike and enter during the pull back or I watch for a morning panic and enter on the first green candle.
@spidereyesoup Thanks!
@kgarcia Thanks man. So far I seem to be long biased. However, I want to learn to short.
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