MattSS

Ericmoles and zdo thanks so much for all your info so far. I'm going to research the links you've provided (have done so a bit already). I had some follow up questions to your recent posts. Where do I learn how to develop a system for the forex market? Where can I learn how to back test or paper test a system? (don't know what a papertest and I think a backtest is where you take data from the market in the past and see how a system would have worked in that market) (I think the table of contents of the book you recommended indicated it had some ideas about systems but I was wondering if there were any other resources that would be good in this area) On OANDA, could I trade forex for like 1$ per trade to test out a system I've backtested/papertested? Would commissions be too high? Is there a place where I could learn how to use OANDA side by side with MT? (don't know what MT is btw and I'm not sure if I'd want to use it) What are mini lots? Also, wrt whether I want to risk alot (high leverage) the answer would be no (atleast at the start). When it comes to taking risks and learning something like trading, I like to keep my tuition costs as low as possible so my plan is to develop a good system and try it out risking small amounts and keeping good records and refining my system. When I think I have a good winning system then I'll start taking more risk. Thanks for all the info so far everyone.

wrt predicting crowd behavior, while I understand that human behavior is pretty unpredictable, I would imagine (just guessing here) that investors (esp day traders) try to predict how say a certain piece of news about a company or some world event will affect the value of related stocks. Amirite? I wasn't trying to imply that you can get really good at predicting how thousands of people are going to behave, just simply that investors do factor in the information that is put on the news and how it influences the general investing public. The part about it being a skill was saying that someone new like me prob wouldn't be as good at factoring in this type of information into their investing decisions and so this implies there is some skill involved. zdo, you said in your first post: "They [OANDA] offer infinitely variable account and position sizing and also self variable leverage levels which is a fit to what you’re starting with. And FX has plenty of movement…" I don't understand what infinitely variable account sizing is (or infinitely variable position sizing or self variable leverage levels). How do these factors make OANDA a better choice for a bankroll of 2k-5k? And if I'm going to use OANDA as my first trading platform you think I should specialize in futures on there?

Poker was my only source of income for about 2 years. I was and still am living at home with my parents. So rent, food, utilities are all pretty much taken care of. My monthly expenses at the moment don't exceed 330$. I don't currently have a job. I've been entertaining the idea of offering some of my poker expertise to other poker players in the form of coaching for an hourly rate (average hourly rate for poker coaching is maybe 100$ per hour) or starting a flea market business with the help of my friend who is already successful at it. When you ask "what account size will you be trading?" I can say that I would like my initial account size to be 500-2000 dollars at the start so that I'm not risking too much and I can get experience for a relatively low risk. I'm not well versed in what proper bankroll management is when it comes to how much money is considered a "safe" bankroll size in order to withstand the potential losses of trading x amount. I was thinking of starting with dow e-mini futures (5$ each per tick) as recommended in the sticky. They appeal to me for their smaller size and therefore smaller risk. The max I could afford to risk on investing would be 5k right now. If I lost that 5k I would still have enough money to live on for 9-10 months which would give me plenty of time to make money from other sources. My goals in trading are to become good at intra-day trading with a speculative aim. When I was playing poker my goal was to get to the high stakes where much money can be made and since I can't do that with online poker anymore I think my aim has transitioned to learn how to do intra day trading very well so that I can make "good money". I'd be satisfied earning 40k from trading (since thats more than what I could earn in a regular job (I only have a 2 year degree and not much work experience, esp last two years)) but my desire would be to improve my skill to the point where I could make hundreds of thousands of dollars. I think on top of the income from trading I would also be playing live poker out of still having a passion for the game. I would need to set up means to be able to get easier access to games though (my nearest casino is 100 miles away).

I've been researching how to trade dow e-mini futures and on one of the information pages it said that "the (non-day-trade) initial margin requirement for a single Mini Dow contract was ~$6,875" and that "intra-day trades which are not held overnight do not require the usual margins, but only a ‘day trading’ margin, typically half that of the standard amount or ~$3,437.50." What does this mean in practical terms for a beginning trader? Does it mean that if I want to do intra-day trading for dow eminis I need to have atleast 3,437.50 in my account? My credit prob isn't good right now though not super bad. Also, I don't have a job at the moment. I do have some cash though. Does my not having good credit or a job negatively affect my ability to open an account to trade dow e-minis or other tradeable instruments?

I will look up those threads. I don't know what MM means. But I do know how position affects your decisions at the poker table. The main principle is that the more people you have left to act behind you, the tighter you have to play and the more people you have acting in front of you the looser you can play. When you have no one acting behind you you can play your loosest. All that means to me is I just need to learn the psychology of crowd behavior as it applies to trading. Its just another skill I have to develop. At the poker table you have a very limited amount of time to make your betting decisions therefore the amount of analysis you can do is limited by this time constraint. So with trading it would seem that you have more time to analyse your decisions and more time over which they may come to fruition. I like that. Not sure how to skim without reading. I think if I said "I'm going to skim this" then I'd just end up reading it anyway. I guess if you mean to only read something once and if it seems to be of more value than other things I've read then to go back and "zoom in" on it and focus on whats being taught. I'll research OANDA. In the sticky for beginner's written by soultrader, he says that he recommends dow and S+P e-mini futures. So I've been thinking of researching how to trade dow e-mini futures since they are only 5$ per tick and thats low enough to allow me some wriggle room. Any tips on trading these? Any software you think I should get that would help me trade these? What about ninjatrader software?

Hi, I'm a young unmarried guy with no kids and I have a desire to learn how to be a profitable trader. I come from a internet poker background where I made the money I have now. I live in America and can no longer play internet poker. There are many parallels between poker and trading I've heard. They both involve a lot of psychology and math and are ways to risk money in order to make money. I figure since I was good at poker I can probably become good at trading if I put in the same amount of work towards trading as I did toward poker (which was about 4 hours every day for 2.5 years - though since I want to get my trading biz off the ground sooner than 2.5 years I would say I would study/practice at least 6 hours per day). Also, if I could be confident that I were making the right decisions with my money, I'd be willing to risk 5k toward trading. If I thought there were a high chance of losing everything I tried to invest with I would prob only want to risk 2k. So I'm basically a complete newb to trading. I've read about 10% of an introductory investing textbook from 1992. I know some of the basic definitions of some trading terminology and have a rough idea of some basic principles of trading. When I got good at poker I had access to affordable resources (books, free forum articles from experienced players,and training videos from a subscription site that I paid 30$ per month for), and I think I need similar resources for learning how to trade. Any thoughts on how I could get affordable (free = best!) training to learning how to trade on the stock market? From the textbook I've been reading I've developed an interest in buying and selling options. The appeal for me is that you can leverage stock with smaller amounts of money than it takes to actually purchase the stock outright. Any thoughts on my current inclination toward options? Any recommendations for training? Theres sooooooo many books on the stock market, any thoughts on which books would be best for someone in my position? What does the learning process consist of when it comes to becoming good at trading? Like what are the "steps of the learning curve"? Can you detail any of the "aha" moments that all profitable traders went through? When I learned how to play internet poker I started off at the "micro-stakes". Micro-stakes are the smallest stakes poker you can find in the world. The lowest (where I started) was only 1cent/2cent blinds.The average bet size was only 20 cents and you only had 1 or 2 dollars "on the table" (at risk IOW). This allowed players to start with say 20-40 dollars of a bankroll and build a bankroll from this small amount of money and gain valuable experience at a low "tuition" cost. As they built their bankroll they could move up to the next stake, gain more experience, battle tougher players, win larger amounts of money all at the risk of their small initial investment. Is there anything like this in the trading world so that I could get experience at a low risk? Thanks for reading